National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | Three Centuries of Italian Art

Bassano was a leading 16th century Venetian Mannerist and this was painted in his youth. When Catherine remained true to her faith and refused the advances of a Roman Emperor in Alexandria, she was bound to a wheel with spikes. This works depicts the confusion of the moment when a thunderbolt destroyed the wheel, and an angel appears, bathed in a supernatural light. The controlled composition of the powerful twisted torsos is painted in luminescent, carefully delineated colours.