(Venice circa 1415 – before 1484)
Saint Catherine of Alexandria,
tempera, oil and gold on panel, arched top, 59.5 x 41 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Paolo Paolini, Rome;
his sale, American Art Galleries, New York, 11 December 1924, lot 101 (as Antonio Vivarini), sold to R. L. Addison for $ 250;
Private collection, Vienna, 1928;
with Carlo Foresti, Milan, 1930–1939;
sale, Fischer, Lucerne, 26 August 1939, lot 1605 (as Bartolomeo Vivarini);
Private collection, Switzerland;
sale, Finarte-Semenzato, Venice, 6 November 2005, lot 48 (as Antonio Vivarini, sold: € 283,975);
The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware;
with Moretti, London, 2016;
Private collection, England

Literature:
B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento. Elenco dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. La scuola veneta, London 1958, vol. I, p. 206, plate 87 (as Antonio Vivarini, whereabouts unknown);
A. De Marchi, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, in: M. Boskovits (ed.), The Alana Collection. Italian paintings and sculptures from the fourteenth to sixteenth century, vol. II, Florence 2011, pp. 281–285, no. 40, illustrated p. 283 (as Antonio Vivarini, circa 1470–1475)

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri under no. 23730 (as Antonio Vivarini).

The present panel is a significant example of Venetian painting from the second half of the 15th century. Saint Catherine is shown frontally with her head turned to the left as she holds a segment of the wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom, in front of her body. While the composition of the painting remains faithful to the canon of courtly elegance and formality, the saint’s natural hand gesture and the close point of view, as well as her somewhat individualised facial expression, reflect the influence of Giovanni Bellini’s pictorial innovations around 1460. Antonio Vivarini used a similar representation of Saint Catherine in the polyptych of Montolmo, dated to 1462, now conserved in the Pinacoteca parrocchiale in Corridonia (see Fototeca Zeri, no. 23772).

The foreshortened perspective in the present depiction suggests that the panel was to be placed at a high level, possibly the upper left register of a polyptych. It is stylistically close to the Saint Francis in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (acc. no. 25.56) which may come from the same polyptych, albeit from the inner left register: The saints have similar eyes, both have square hands with slightly protruding thumbs, both have parallel folds forming oval-shaped hollows on their sleeves, and both have comparable punching marks in their halos.

Antonio Vivarini was the most prominent exponent of the dynasty of artists who originally came from Murano. His first documented work dates from 1440, a polyptych now in the Euphrasian Basilica, Poreč. At this time, he started to collaborate with his brother-in-law Giovanni d’Alemagna, starting with the Saint Jerome altarpiece for Santo Stefano, Venice, now conserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. nos. 6813, 6814, 6815, 6816, 6817, 6818). Together with his brother Bartolomeo, Antonio established a workshop in the quarter of Santa Maria Formosa, in Venice, which his son Alvise joined in the mid-1460s.