Spanish school; second half of the 17th century.

Spanish school; second half of the XVII century.
"Santa Catalina".
Oil on canvas.
Presents faults in the pictorial surface.
Preserves frame of the second half of the seventeenth century.
Measurements: 44 x 44 cm; 98 x 80 cm (frame).
Devotional scene representing a martyr inscribed in a landscape. The young woman, who is located in the center of the scene is proud and proud before the viewer with her palm of martyrdom, the distaff and a sword, indicating that it is St. Catherine of Alexandria.
The cult of St. Catherine of Alexandria was widely spread throughout Europe from the sixth century, is included in the group of the holy helpers and is invoked against sudden death. Catherine was born around 290 into a noble family of Alexandria. Endowed with a great intelligence, she soon stood out for her extensive studies, which placed her on the same level as the greatest poets and philosophers of the time. One night Christ appeared to her and she decided, at that moment, to consecrate her life to him and to consider herself his fiancée, in a sort of mystical marriage. When Emperor Maximian came to Alexandria to preside over a great pagan feast, Catherine took the opportunity to try to convert him to Christianity, which aroused his anger. To test her, Maximian imposed on her a philosophical debate with fifty wise men whom she would try to convert. Catherine succeeded, provoking the emperor's wrath. The emperor had the sages executed, but not before proposing to the saint that she marry one of them, to which she flatly refused. The emperor then ordered her to be tortured using a machine with spiked wheels. Miraculously, the wheels broke when they touched Catherine's body, so she finally had to be beheaded. Although her historical existence was questioned by the Catholic Church since 1961, considering her a literary creation as a Christian counterpoint to the great pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, she remains inscribed in the Roman martyrology freed from legendary narratives.