The Dream of Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Ludovico Carraccic. 1593
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
We recognize this sleeping figure as Saint Catherine by the fragment of spiked wheel in the lower left corner, which was the instrument of an attempted martyrdom. Here Lodovico Carracci represented her legendary dream in which Mary and the infant Christ, accompanied by angels, appeared to her. Plighting his troth, Christ placed a ring on Catherine's finger, and through this mystic marriage she became his bride. To cast the event as a dream, rather than having Saint Catherine receive the ring while awake, is Lodovico's innovation.
Two angels at the left look on with protective tenderness, while others barely emerge amid the vaporous bronze radiance at the right -- spirit becoming matter. The figures, solid and robust, bask in an indeterminate setting. A languorous warmth pervades the scene and slows the composition. At the same time, the quirky folds and pleats cascading down Catherine's garments impart a vertiginous sensation -- the dizziness of sleep.
Lodovico was the eldest of the three Carracci, the family of Bolognese artists who inaugurated the age of the baroque. His depictions of saints in states of visionary ecstasy were highly prized in an age when the purpose of religious art was to arouse intensely pious emotions in the spectator.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/italian-paintings-17th-and-18th-centuries.pdf</u>
- Title: The Dream of Saint Catherine of Alexandria
- Creator: Lodovico Carracci
- Date Created: c. 1593
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 138.8 x 110.5 cm (54 5/8 x 43 1/2 in.) framed: 181 x 149.9 x 11.4 cm (71 1/4 x 59 x 4 1/2 in.)
- Provenance: Louis-Jacques-Aimé-Theodore de Dreux, marquis de Nancré [d.1719]; who probably gave it to Philippe II, duc d'Orléans [1674-1723];[1] Louis, duc d'Orléans [1703-1752];[2] by inheritance to his grandson, Louis-Philippe-Joseph [Philippe Egalité, 1747-1793];[3] sold 1792 to viscount Edouard de Walkuers; sold to François-Louis-Joseph, marquis de Laborde-Méréville [d. 1801], who took it to London;[4] bought at (Jeremiah Harman's London)[5] by a consortium consisting of Francis Egerton, 3d duke of Bridgewater [1736-1803], Frederick Howard, 5th earl of Carlisle and the earl Gower; retained by Francis Egerton, 3d duke of Bridgewater, upon whose death it entered a trust held in succession by the following: George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2d marquess of Stafford and 1st duke of Sutherland [1758-1833], nephew of preceding; Francis Egerton, 1st earl of Ellesmere [1800-1857], son of preceding; Francis Charles Granville Egerton, 3d earl of Ellesmere [1847-1914], grandson of preceding who inherited the trust in 1903;[6] by descent to John Sutherland, 5th earl of Ellesmere and duke of Sutherland; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 October 1946, no. 67); bought by (Hans Callmann).[7] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); purchased 1950 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[8] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] Casimir Stryiensky, _La galerie du régent Philippe, Duc d'Orléans_, Paris, 1913: 13, 167 no. 218. Nancré had accompanied the duke to Spain and was appointed Capitaine des Suisses at the Palais Royal. Stryiensky states that Nancré had given the painting to the duke out of gratitude for honors received. On Nancré see Edmond Bonnaffé, _Dictionnaire des Amateurs français au XVIIe siècle_, Paris, 1884 (reprinted Amsterdam, 1966): 229. [2] Louis François Dubois de Saint-Gelais, _Description des tableaux du Palais Royal_, Paris, 1727: 298; this is the first documentation of the painting in the Orléans collection. [3] Jacques Couché, _La Galerie du Palais Royale_, 2 vols., Paris, 1786-1808: 1:no. 5. [4] William Buchanan, _Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England_, London, 1824: 1:17-18, 85. M. Passavant, _Tour of a German Artist in England_, 2 vols., London, 1836 (first German edition 1833): 2:179. [5] _A Catalogue of the Orléans Pictures, which will be exhibited for sale by private contract, on Wednesday the 26th of December, 1798 and following days at the Lyceum in the Strand_, London, 1798: no. 184. [6] The history of the trust is recounted in Lionel Cust, _The Bridgewater Gallery_, London, 1903: v-vii. The painting is recorded in the following catalogues: John Britton, _Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures Belonging to the Most Honourable Marquis of Stafford in the Gallery of Cleveland House_, London, 1808, no. 25; _Catalogue of Pictures Belonging to the Marquis of Stafford at Cleveland House_, London, 1812, no. 25; William Young Ottley and Peltro William Tomkins, _Engravings of the Most Noble the Marquis of Stafford's Collection of Pictures in London_, London, 1818, no. 37, repro.; _A Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures of the Most Noble the Marquess of Stafford at Cleveland House, London_, 2 vols., London, 1825: 1: no. 33, pl. 10; _Catalogue of the Bridgewater Collection of Pictures, Belonging to The Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House, Cleveland Square_, London, 1851: no. 48; and Gustav Waagen, _Works of Art and Artists in England_, 3 vols., London, 1838: 2: 320. [7] According to marginal notations in the copy of the auction catalogue held by the Getty Provenance Index. [8] According to _Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951_, Washington, D.C., 1951: 134. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2145.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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