Full title | Saint Catherine of Alexandria |
---|---|
Artist | Carlo Crivelli |
Artist dates | about 1430/5 - about 1494 |
Group | The Demidoff Altarpiece |
Date made | 1476 |
Medium and support | Tempera on poplar |
Dimensions | 137.5 x 40 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1868 |
Inventory number | NG788.4 |
Location | Room 57 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This graceful, golden-haired princess is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, identifiable by her traditional attributes of a spiked wheel and martyr’s palm. She comes from the great polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted for the church of the Dominican Order in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. Catherine was beloved by the Dominicans as a martyr who defended the Christian faith against pagans and heretics.
Catherine stands on a marble shelf, rather like a statue. Crivelli has painted her wheel from an acute angle, showing off his skill with foreshortening – a way of distorting objects so that they seem to recede into the picture. Although she lived in the third century, Catherine’s overdress of red and gold figured silk is like those produced in medieval Italy. Her sleeves are decorated with golden pelicans and phoenixes, symbols of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and the Resurrection.
This golden-haired princess is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, identifiable by her attributes of a spiked wheel and martyr’s palm. She comes from the great polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted for the church of San Domenico in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche.
The graceful use of line and a fascination with decorative detail are typical of Crivelli, as is his interest in spatial games. Although the background is gold – indicating that she is heaven – Catherine stands on a marble shelf which seems to recede sharply. In a kind of Renaissance virtual reality, the toe of her shoe peeps out over the edge of the marble parapet and casts a shadow on it, as if she is about to step out of the panel into our space. To show off his skill with foreshortening, Crivelli depicts her wheel sideways on, at a dramatically acute angle. This was a relatively novel way of showing objects in the late fifteenth century – compare it to the flat wheel held by Saint Catherine in Giovanni da Milano’s Christ and the Virgin Enthroned with Six Saints.
Catherine was a scholarly Christian princess who lived in third-century Alexandria under Roman rule. When she asked the Roman Emperor to stop persecuting Christians, he sent his best philosophers to debate with her and to persuade her to revert to paganism. They failed and many converted to Christianity on the strength of Catherine’s arguments. The Emperor then asked her to marry him. When she refused, he had her tortured on a wheel and finally beheaded.
She was beloved by the Dominican Order, who commissioned this altarpiece, as a martyr who defended the Christian faith against pagans and heretics through intellectual argument. The Dominicans were one of the two great mendicant or preaching orders founded in the Middle Ages to provide educated preachers in towns and cities (the others being the Franciscans). One of their main concerns was to combat heresy, both through scholarly debate and through the Inquisition, which they organised.
Although she lived in the third century, Catherine is here dressed in fifteenth-century fashion. She wears an overdress of red and gold figured silk, such as was produced in medieval Italy. This is laced under her arms and has a broad gold collar and elaborate clasps of gilded pastiglia. The fastenings down the front have been left open to reveal her linen shift, and her sleeves slashed to allow it to escape in elegant puffs – sleeves at this time were detachable, and so tight that it was impossible to move unless openings were left. The shift itself is so fine as to be almost translucent, and is edged with a ribbon at the neck and wrists. Her sleeves are decorated with golden pelicans and phoenixes, symbols of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and the Resurrection. This fabric is a deliberately old-fashioned design; it is very similar to that worn by one of the kings in The Wilton Diptych, made around 80 years earlier. This would have been immediately clear to fifteenth-century Ascolians as the Marche was a centre of the textile industry. Crivelli is making the point that although she is dressed in contemporary clothes, Catherine lived in the ancient past.
Her forehead has been shaved to give it greater height, as was the fashion at the time, and her long blonde hair wound in fantastic curls around her coronet. The coronet and the neckline of her dress are decorated with small balls, one of which is missing. These would have been silvered to imitate pearls. Her dress and hairstyle are very similar to that of Saint Lucy, whom Crivelli painted for a smaller polyptych for the same church.
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The Demidoff Altarpiece
Crivelli painted two altarpieces for the small church of San Domenico, in the town of Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. Their history is complex and intertwined. A large, double-tiered polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) sat on the high altar, while a smaller altarpiece was in a side chapel.
In the nineteenth century parts of both altarpieces were sold to a Russian prince, Anatole Demidoff, who mounted them in a grand frame to make a three-tiered altarpiece for the chapel of his villa in Florence. The whole complex is now known as the Demidoff Altarpiece.
The National Gallery bought the Demidoff Altarpiece in 1868, and in 1961 the panels from the smaller polyptych were removed. They are now displayed separately.
Crivelli painted two altarpieces for the small church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. Their history is complex and intertwined. A large, two-tiered polyptych was displayed on the high altar, while a smaller altarpiece was in a side chapel.
The polyptych was still standing on the high altar in 1724, but was later dismantled. In the nineteenth century parts of both were sold to a Russian aristocrat, Prince Anatole Demidoff. He mounted them in a grand frame to make a three-tiered altarpiece for the chapel of his villa in Florence. The whole complex is known after him as the Demidoff Altarpiece.
The National Gallery bought the Demidoff Altarpiece in 1868. In 1961 the four saints in the upper tier – originally painted for the small altarpiece in San Domenico – were removed from the main altarpiece. They are now shown separately (Saint Jerome, Saint Michael, Saint Lucy, Saint Peter Martyr).
Exactly how the remaining nine panels were originally arranged is unclear. We know that the Virgin and Child were in the centre, with full-length saints on either side and half-length figures in the upper tier – although not necessarily in their current order. The altarpiece had a predella, now lost, and was topped by a painting of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, now in New York.
San Domenico was the main church in Ascoli of the Dominican Order. The Dominicans, often known as the ‘Blackfriars’ in England, were one of the two great mendicant or preaching orders founded in the Middle Ages to provide educated preachers in towns and cities. Mendicant comes from the Latin word mendicare – ‘to beg’. Men who joined the mendicant orders took vows of poverty and travelled from place to place, preaching and living on what was given by their listeners. There were few Dominican houses in the Marche, as it was a mountainous, sparsely populated region, and the priory and church of San Domenico fell into decline in the fourteenth century. It was revived by the Blessed Constanzo di Meo di Servolo (d. 1481), who is shown in the altarpiece as Saint Dominic. He restored the priory and commissioned the great altarpiece, raising money from the citizens of Ascoli to pay for it.
In medieval Dominican churches the high altar was usually on a raised dais at the east end of the church. It was separated from the public west end by a tramezzo screen, known as a rood screen in England, so only the friars themselves could get close to the altarpiece. They would have gazed at it for many hours each day while sitting in the choir stalls for the performance of the liturgy, and the choice of saints closely reflects their concerns: preaching, teaching, defeating heresy and the salvation of souls. The Virgin in the central panel was the special protector of the Order. Saint Peter on her right stands for the papacy, which the Dominicans faithfully supported. Saint John the Baptist at the far left represented the idea that salvation could only be achieved by admission to the Church through baptism. On the Virgin’s right are Saint Catherine, whom the friars admired for her defence of the Christian faith against non-believers, and Saint Dominic, the founder of the Order.
In the top row we see Saint Francis, founder of the Franciscan order of preachers. Next to him is Saint Andrew, the first apostle, seen as a role model for preaching to ordinary people. Facing these two saints are Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who like Catherine debated with unbelievers, and finally the great Dominican theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas. The saints all look quite different, ranging from fierce apostles to ecstatic friars and elegant princesses.
In all of them, Crivelli has used techniques such as gilding, punching and incising to make his paintings seem three dimensional and real. He emphasises certain objects, such as crowns and haloes, by building them up with pastiglia so they stand proud of the painted surface, and unites the panels by tooling a damask pattern, like that of a rich fabric, into the burnished gold backgrounds. These shapes and patterns must have shone and flickered in the candlelit nave of San Domenico.









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