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Description: | 187.0 x 248.0 s.d. CRE COSSIERS, Jan; (Flemish; 1600-1671) LABEL "Saint Catherine was put to death by the Roman Emperor from 286 to 305 A.D., Maximianus. The wheel with which the Emperor intended to execute her is visible to the left. The painting was acquired in the 1760s by Robert Foulis, Printer to the University and founder of the Foulis Academy, Glasgow's first art academy. Following the bankruptcy of the Foulis brothers, the University purchased this painting, one of the first Old Master paintings to enter the University's collections." The statue in the background is probably that of Maximianus, who was responsible for the Saint's martyrdom. Robert Foulis acquired the picture by 1762.This is an important painting, commissioned - almost certainly - for the Church of St Catherine and St Libert in the Beguinage in Mechelen (Malines), for which Cossiers painted more than 30 paintings; 13 remain in situ. It was bought by Glasgow University printer Robert Foulis in Brussels in 1751 for his Academy of painting, and passed to the University in 1779 after the Academy collapsed.
St Catherine was (according to the Golden Legend) a noble woman of Alexandria who was martyred in the reign of Maxentius (c. 310 A.D.), although this is corrected in the final paragraph to Maximinus. St Eusebius mentions a noble Alexandrian woman who rejected the approaches of the Emperor, but he makes no mention of her martyrdom. St Catherine became very popular at the time of the crusades, when the miraculous discovery of her body on Mount Sinai, untouched, 5 centuries after her execution was still a fresh and exciting story. Her remains were interred in the chapel of the Burning Bush in the Monastery there, which became thereafter the Monastery of St Catherine. In Italian art, her popularity is second only to the Magdalen and to the Virgin Mary; she appears commonly in altarpieces alongside the Virgin and Child. She is one of the 14 Holy Helpers. Her cult in the low countries arrived with crusaders returning from the far east; one of the earliest foundations dedicated to her in the Low Countries s the Church of St Catherine in Lille, for which Rubens painted a martyrdom of the saint c. 1615-20 (Corpus 78). The painting corresponds precisely in size to the series painted by Cossiers for the choir of the Church of the Beguinage in Mechelen (Malines), which was dedicated to St Libert and St Catherine, and it was almost cetainly part of that cycle, probably as an extra canvas that was rotated with others. The soldiers are painted in a mixture of styles. Some stare rudely out of the painting in the manner of Caravaggio; others suggest the oriental manner of Cossier's French painter friend Claude Vignon. The elderly man to the right is most likely the priest of Apollo (his clothing resembles that of the priest in the Rubens martyrdom) and he gestures to a statue of the god whose feet only are visible top left. It is for her refusal to sacrifice to the ancient gods that Catherine is to be executed. The executioner is preparing her for the wheel which has not yet been struck by the thunderbolt, necessitating - after further imprisonment - Catherine's execution by beheading with a sword. The work belonged to Robert Foulis, printer to the University, who founded an art academy in 1753, and bought paintings for students to copy. Foulis may have purchased this painting on a visit to Brussels in 1751. The painting was purchased by the University in 1779 at the time of the auction of the collection of the bankrupt Robert Foulis, and is thus one of the earliest acquisitions of works of art. The painting is listed as no. 26 in A Catalogue of the Pictures at present exhibited in the Great Auction Room No 70 St Martin's Lane...by Robert Foulis in 1776. Along with the copy of Raphael's Deposition it was bought by friends of the University before being offered to the University. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | RELIGION : SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA : DEATH : MALE : FIGURE : FEMALE : MARTYR : FOULIS ACADEMY : CHURCH OF THE BEGUINAGE MECHELEN : MG1 2007 : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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