About the Artwork
This serene sculpture depicts Saint Catherine of Alexandria (287 – 305) — a princess and early Christian martyr — as a fashionable lady of the late 1400s. Her delicate hands grasp her attributes, symbolic objects related to her biography that helped late medieval viewers identify her. Her left hand supports an open book. She wielded her formidable intellect and deep knowledge of Christian scripture to convert even the most learned Romans, making her an appropriate patron saint of philosophers and scholars.
Her right hand holds a sword, a reference to the manner of her execution at the order of the Roman emperor Maxentius (d. 312). The South-German sculptor visualized this blade not as a weapon from antiquity but as one of the hand-and-a-half longswords that were made in his region and exported throughout Europe during the 1400s. Combined with her courtly clothing, this detail would have presented the saint to late medieval viewers as a contemporary woman of their own time.
Saint Catherine
late 15th century
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German
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Lindenwood with polychromy and gilding
Overall: 40 × 13 3/4 × 9 1/2 inches (101.6 × 34.9 × 24.1 cm)
Sculpture
European Sculpture and Dec Arts
City of Detroit Purchase
21.194
Public Domain
Markings
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Provenance
In 1921, (Dr. Fritz Goldschmidt, Galerie Goldschmidt-Wallerstein) (Berlin, Germany);1921-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Richardson, E.P. "A Madonna Statue by Jorg Syrlin The Younger." Bulletin of the DIA 15, no. 4 (Detroit 1936): pp. 51-54; p. 53 (fig. 3.).
Valentiner, W.R. "Recent Accessions." Bulletin of the DIA 3, no. 3 (December 1921): pp. 22-30; p. 28 (ill.).
Valentiner, W. R. "New Period Rooms." Bulletin of the DIA 3, no. 4 (January 1923): p. 28, 26 (ill.).
Gillerman, D. ed. Gothic Sculpture in America. Vol. II, The Museums of the Midwest. Turnhout, 2001, p. 159, no. 121.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
German, Saint Catherine, late 15th century, lindenwood with polychromy and gilding. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 21.194.
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