Saint Lucy

This elegant woman is Saint Lucy. She once stood on the Virgin’s left in a small altarpiece which Crivelli painted for a side chapel in the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. Lucy holds her cactus-like martyr’s palm in one hand, and a circular wooden plate in the other. On the trencher are pair of hooded, oval eyes which cast shadows on the golden wood: Lucy’s eyes were removed as part of her martyrdom (she is now the patron saint of opticians).

In a detail typical of Crivelli, her elongated, bony toes in their pointed red sandals poke out over the edge of the marble parapet on which she stands, linking her heavenly space with ours.