The Roman Empress Faustina Visiting Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison

About the Art

This is a scene from the traditional account of the life of St. Catherine, a well-educated and beautiful daughter of a ruling family in the city of Alexandria in Egypt. She was imprisoned by the Roman Emperor Maxentius for challenging his persecution of Christians and converting many of his philosophers. The wife of the Emperor, Faustina, visited Catherine in prison and was instantly converted, along with the soldiers who accompanied her.

With its life-size figures, the image looks like a seventeenth-century opera, staged in swirling, upwardly progressing levels, from the burly jailers in the lower right to the angelic spectator above. It was likely painted for a Roman church or private chapel and is one of Preti’s largest works. This kind of theatrical sensibility marks much of the art made for the Roman Catholic Church in the late 1500s and 1600s.

Throughout Europe in the 1500s, the Protestant Reformation challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Protestants questioned several Catholic teachings and practices, including the veneration of saints and the use of art in church buildings. Artworks intended to inspire awe, such as this painting of a popular saint converting a pagan empress, were an effective way to reinforce the Church’s teachings and assert its validity by communicating a sense of grandeur.

FEATURED IMAGE
Mattia Preti (Italian, 1613–1699), The Roman Empress Faustina Visiting Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison, about 1640–1643, oil on canvas, 167 1/2 x 100 inches (425.5 x 254 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Elton F. MacDonald, 1961.108