The Ordeal of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Artist Master of the Orcagnesque Misericordia (Italian, Florentine, active second half of the 1300s)

Dateabout 1365 - about 1390

Mediumtempera on panel

Dimensionspanel: 21.7 x 34 cm (8 9/16 x 13 3/8 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineTheodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection

Terms

Object number1940.30

Label TextThis panel and another from the same series, which is in the Lehman Collection in New York, have been assigned at various times to a number of Florentine masters, including Nardo da Cione, Agnolo Gaddi or his school, and followers of Giovanni da Milano and Niccolo di Pietro Gerini. A precise attribution has never been established, however. The scene shows Saint Catherine with her executioners. Christ appears in the sky and offers her a palm frond, the symbol of martyrdom. Saint Catherine had been sentenced to torture on the wheels by the Roman Emperor, who is seen here on the right with soldiers. The wheels broke, and she was beheaded instead. This panel would have formed part of the predella of an altarpiece. A predella, the long, narrow section at the bottom of a polyptych, frequently shows scenes from the life of the principal saint in the larger panels above. This saint was usually either the patron saint of the donor, or the saint of the chapel for which the altarpiece was intended.ProvenancePossibly W. Fuller Maitland, Stansted Hall, Essex; possibly Trotti, Paris, c. 1928; R. Langton Douglas (1864–1951), 1932; Theodore T. Ellis (1868-1934), Worcester, MA by 12 July 1934; bequeathed to his wife, Mary G. Ellis (d. 1940); bequeathed to the Worcester Art Museum as part of the Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, 1940.

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