First published in 2007 by Francesca Baldassari as a work by Marinari, this elegant painting is an autograph version of a subject known in two other very similar examples: one at the Wallace Collection, London (fig. 1),¹ and the other at the Residenzgalerie, Saltzburg,² which attest to the success of its unusual treatment. Datable to about 1670, such a portrayal of Saint Catherine absorbed in quiet contemplation in her private study is rarely depicted. Three sources recording Marinari’s Saint Catherine – all citing Florentine collections – have been linked to the composition, although none definitively to any of the known versions.³

Florentine by birth, Marinari studied initially with his father, Gismondo, and then with his cousin, the celebrated painter Carlo Dolci (1616–1687), whose delicate manner influenced him profoundly. As Dolci’s most gifted and original pupil, Marinari shows his debt to the master in his preference for single figures and refined execution. His flair for rendering rich textures is seen to good effect in the subtle fabrics of Catherine’s dress, her elaborate coiffure set with pearls, and the fine furnishings of her study.

Reputedly of royal blood, Catherine was renowned for her erudition and wisdom. In reference to her role as patron of learning, Marinari has chosen to depict her engrossed in a book, its pages well leafed. The broken wheel in the background (Catherine’s standard attribute) alludes to her martyrdom at the order of the Roman emperor Maxentius, who sought in vain to undermine her faith by sending philosophers to argue with her.

The primacy of the versions has been the subject of debate. In her monograph on the artist, Silvia Benassai considers the present work and the Saltzburg example to be autograph derivations of the Wallace painting and closely comparable in handling.⁴ Both Baldassari and Benassai have noted the strong stylistic similarity between the head of Saint Catherine and the young Salome in Marinari’s masterpiece Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, now at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, also datable to the 1670s (fig. 2).⁵

¹ P562; oil on canvas, 75.2 x 106.4 cm.; Benassai 2011, p. 118, no. 36, pl. 7, reproduced in colour.

² Inv. no. G 010; oil on canvas, 92.5 x 119 cm.; reproduced in Benassai 2011, pp. 118–19, no. 37.

³ Benassai 2011, p. 118, under no. 36 and p. 265: Gondi, Orlandini and Riccardi collections.

⁴ The Wallace collection painting, attributed to Dolci in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, has probably been cut along the top and right-hand edges.

⁵ 2003.117.1; oil on canvas, 117 x 97 cm. F. Baldassari, La collezione Piero ed Elena Bigongiari. Il Seicento fiorentino tra “favola” e drama, Milan 2004, pp. 55–58, fig. 45.