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Shown from the waist up and nearly filling the picture, a young woman with pale skin, dressed in a jewel-toned gown and cape, looks out at us in this vertical painting. Her shoulders are angled slightly to our right, and she tilts her head in that direction. Her pale cheeks are tinged with pink, and she gazes at us from the corners of large brown eyes under thin brows. A slender gold crown is looped with gleaming strands of pearls hung with red and dark green gems. It rests on her upswept auburn-brown hair, and a thin halo frames her head. She wears a bright, flame-red gown with voluminous sleeves and a pleated bodice. Sheer, white fabric covers her chest to create a V that reaches the squared neckline. An emerald-green cloak is loosely draped across the back of her shoulders and over the top of a spiked, wooden wheel on which she rests her hands. She wears a gold ring on the third finger of her left hand and holds a yellow palm frond in the other. Behind her, a burgundy-red cloth patterned with stylized, brighter red plants and flowers hangs in bunches and folds.

Lorenzo Lotto

Saint Catherine, 1522

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 18

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 57.2 x 50.2 cm (22 1/2 x 19 3/4 in.)

framed: 74 x 68.3 x 5.1 cm (29 1/8 x 26 7/8 x 2 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.117

Artists / Makers

Lorenzo Lotto (artist) Venetian, c. 1480 - 1556/1557

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower right on wheel: Laurentius Lotus / 1522

Provenance

Leuchtenberg Collection, Munich and Leningrad, by 1843;[1] sold 1933 through (Heinemann Galerie, Munich) to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence and Rome);[2] sold 1933 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The painting was catalogued in 1843 and 1852 by J. D. Passavant as part of the Leuchtenberg collection.

[2] Heinemann Galerie no. 18964 (sold paintings card; copy in NGA curatorial files).

[3] Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV - XVI Century, London, 1968: 68. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1809.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Galerie Heinemann
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Leuchtenberg

Exhibition History

1997: Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti, Bergamo; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1997-1999, no. 19, repro., as Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

Bibliography

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 114, no. 228.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 244, repro. 137.

1955: Berenson, Bernard. Lotto. Milan, 1955: 79, fig. 133.

1956: Berenson, Bernard. Lorenzo Lotto. New York, 1956: 54, pl. 133.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 159, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 78.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 68, repro.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 161, fig. 391.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 200, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:275; 2:pl. 189.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 191, no. 221, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 234, repro.

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 157, color repro.

1997: Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti, Bergamo; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1997-1999: no. 19.

2021: Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria. Lorenzo Lotto: Catalogo generale dei dipinti. Milan, 2021: 198, 366, cat. I.47, repro.