SASSOFERRATO (1609-85)
The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine
c. 1650RCIN 906084
Sassoferrato worked in a deliberately old-fashioned style, painting both copies of works by earlier artists, especially Raphael, and his own compositions. This is a study for an altarpiece, painted for a church in Genzano, outside Rome, now in the Wallace Collection, London. It depicts a vision of St Catherine of Alexandria in which the Christ Child placed a ring on her finger, making her his spiritual bride.