The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine is an oil-on-canvas painting that Paolo Veronese produced around 1575 as the high altarpiece of the church of Santa Caterina in Venice. It stayed in that church until the First World War, when it was moved to the Gallerie dell'Accademia in the same city, where it is now displayed. The subject, the spiritual wedding of the Alexandrian saint to the Christ Child, was one Veronese returned to several times, including an earlier treatment from about 1547 to 1550.

The composition clearly looks back to Titian's Pesaro Altarpiece, painted between 1519 and 1526 for the Frari in Venice. Veronese adopts its asymmetric diagonal layout, with the Virgin and Child seated on a stepped throne set slightly left of centre, but he handles it with a more open and luminous rhythm. Behind the throne two Corinthian columns stand for the pillars of the faith, a device that adds solemnity while keeping a sense of space.

The scene shows the moment when Catherine receives the wedding ring from the Child, with the Virgin looking on and an angel attending the ceremony. The bright colours, rich fabrics and play of light are hallmarks of the Venetian Mannerism that Veronese practised, and they reveal his keen interest in paint itself and in the elegance of his figures.

The painting matters because it distils Veronese's dialogue with Titian's tradition, and because it shows how Venetian religious painting in the second half of the sixteenth century combined devotion, lavish colour and a theatrical conception of sacred space.

Painter

Paolo Veronese

Date

1575

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

337 × 241 cm

Museum

Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Movement

Mannerism

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Catherine of Alexandria, angel, Mary, Christ Child

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