1524, Lorenzo Lotto, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine with Saints Jerome, George, Sebastian, Anthony Abbot, and Nicholas of Bari -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: Lotto's superb mastery of technique has successfully turned a traditional picture for domestic devotion into a kind of magical speculum perfectionis, a mirror of perfection of the image in its prodigiously vibrant clarity, and at the same time a mirror of the perfection of the model of conduct and meditation that it arouses in the thoughtful onlooker. The picture was intended to hang in the bedchamber of newly-weds Marsilio and Faustina Cassotti, who had previously commissioned Lotto in Bergamo to paint a dual marital portrait of them (now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid). Thus the picture rightly celebrates a marriage, but in this case it is the mystic marriage of Christ with St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Mary presides over and blesses the marriage, indicating the two paths of the Lord: the demanding erudition of Jerome, translator of the Bible, and that of Catherine's loving charity as she places her beringed hand on her barely unfastened bodice. In the middle ground the balance is inverted. On the right the ageing Nicholas and Anthony the Abbot are absorbed in their reading, whilst on the left the martyrs Sebastian and George (who is also wearing a ring) tell us that "passion" for Christ comes with thorns just like the rose which the lovers are exchanging, and that passionate sentiment demands self-control, as indicated by the arcane hieroglyph engraved on the saint's cameo.
It comes as no surprise that the painter should have matched this complex visual and symbolic hierarchy with a more prosaic - though no less significant - mercenary hierarchy in calculating the cost of his labour: 10 ducats for Catherine, a mere 8 for Jerome, but 15 for the Madonna and Child. Art, too, comes at a price.
1524, Lorenzo Lotto, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine with Saints Jerome, George, Sebastian, Anthony Abbot, and Nicholas of Bari -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: Lotto's superb mastery of technique has successfully turned a traditional picture for domestic devotion into a kind of magical speculum perfectionis, a mirror of perfection of the image in its prodigiously vibrant clarity, and at the same time a mirror of the perfection of the model of conduct and meditation that it arouses in the thoughtful onlooker. The picture was intended to hang in the bedchamber of newly-weds Marsilio and Faustina Cassotti, who had previously commissioned Lotto in Bergamo to paint a dual marital portrait of them (now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid). Thus the picture rightly celebrates a marriage, but in this case it is the mystic marriage of Christ with St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Mary presides over and blesses the marriage, indicating the two paths of the Lord: the demanding erudition of Jerome, translator of the Bible, and that of Catherine's loving charity as she places her beringed hand on her barely unfastened bodice. In the middle ground the balance is inverted. On the right the ageing Nicholas and Anthony the Abbot are absorbed in their reading, whilst on the left the martyrs Sebastian and George (who is also wearing a ring) tell us that "passion" for Christ comes with thorns just like the rose which the lovers are exchanging, and that passionate sentiment demands self-control, as indicated by the arcane hieroglyph engraved on the saint's cameo.
It comes as no surprise that the painter should have matched this complex visual and symbolic hierarchy with a more prosaic - though no less significant - mercenary hierarchy in calculating the cost of his labour: 10 ducats for Catherine, a mere 8 for Jerome, but 15 for the Madonna and Child. Art, too, comes at a price.