(Bassano del Grappa 1557–1622 Venice)
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine,
oil on canvas, 66.5 x 83 cm, framed

Literature:
E. Martini, Pittura Veneta e altra italiana dal XV al XIX secolo, Rimini 1992, p. 96, ill. 69, under no. 37

We are grateful to Dr Giuliana Ericani for confirming the attribution to Leandro Bassano. She dates the present painting to between 1580 and 1590.

The small painting - its size indicative of the small format of the collection of paintings of the late period of Jacopo Bassano and his workshop (cf. the observation of Alesandro Ballarin in Jacopo Bassano, Francesco Bassano, Inverno, in Altomani 2004, Milan-Pesaro 2004, p. 75) - depicts the mystical marriage of Saint Catherine. Saint Catherine of Alexandria is depicted kneeling before the enthroned Madonna, while the infant Jesus symbolically marries her by placing an engagement ring on her finger. The music-making angels, who belong to the iconography of the enthroned Madonna, fill the right side and the left margin of the scene and represent an iconographic variant of this subject. They allow the artist to stress the horizontal format of the composition by representing his chosen topic in a manner similar to the depictions of the Adoration of Mary by the Venetian podestà. This subject goes back to Leandro’s father Jacopo Bassano. An example of the latter’s works is his painting Podestà Matteo Soranzo pays homage to the enthroned Madonna, dating from 1536 and executed for the Palazzo del Podestà in Bassano, now preserved in the Municipal museum (Museo Civico). Both Jacopo, even in his old age, and his sons, especially Leandro, repeatedly used this pictorial topic. In the details of the throne and in the depictions of the Madonna, the infant Jesus and St Catherine, the present picture also shows similarities with a painting executed by Francesco Bassano, Leandro’s brother, around 1585 in collaboration with his father for the parish church of Civezzano (Arslan 1960, II, ill. 177). It has its precedent in the slightly older depiction of Podestà Sante Moro, which Jacopo Bassano executed in 1576.

The painting technique, characterised by small brush strokes revealing a thicker impasto especially in the white shades, and a flying dotting style (‘a tocco’) that is also visible in the canopy, corresponds to that of Leandro Bassano. Between 1580 and 1600 he executed works precisely in this manner, such as A Podestà of Bassano (Nicolò Mocenigo?) before the Madonna, on loan from Fondazione Domus to the City Museum in Bassano (Arslan 1960, II, ill. 273) and Podestà Cappello before the Madonna, also City Museum in Bassano, dated 1590.

From both paintings the present work takes the construction of the female countenances, the choice of colours and (from the first one) even the detail of the sewing basket in the foreground. Giuliana Ericani dates this work to between 1580 and 1590.

We are grateful to Dr Giuliana Ericani for her support in cataloguing this work.