Bernardo Cavallino

Private collection, Spain, probably by the late 19th century;

From whom acquired via private sale, Sotheby's, by the present collector, 2004.

Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Ritorno al barocco: Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, 12 December 2009 - 11 April 2010, no. 1.94.

N. Spinosa, "Nuevas aportaciones al catálogo de Bernardo Cavallino," in In Sapientia Libertas, Escritos en Homenaje al Profesor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Madrid and Seville 2007, pp. 370-371, reproduced fig. 6;

N. Spinosa, in Ritorno al barocco: Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, exhibition catalogue, Naples 2009, p. 194, cat. no. 1.94, reproduced;

N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, Da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples 2010, p. 196, cat. no. 67, reproduced;

N. Spinosa, Grazia e tenerezza 'in posa': Bernardo Cavallino e il suo tempo 1616-1656, Rome 2013, p. 351, cat. no. 87, reproduced fig. 123.

Among the most stylistically sophisticated artists working in Baroque Naples, Bernardo Cavallino painted this elegiac depiction of Saint Catherine of Alexandria circa 1645. Attesting to the composition’s success, at least three autograph versions are known, among which this is considered the prime.¹ Almost certainly the earliest of the three, the present canvas is nearly contemporaneous with Cavallino’s Saint Cecilia in Ecstasy (Naples, Museo di Capodimonte). Both works underscore the artist's keen interest in depicting light for both formal and symbolic purposes. Here, the mother-of-pearl, crimson, and gold tones of her fine raiment shimmer in the same bright light that inspires the saint’s moment of divine inspiration.

¹ One is in the Palazzo Doria, Genoa, the other was formerly in the collection of Enrico Frascione, Naples. In addition, a version attributed to Cavallino was sold at Bertolami, 24 October 2024, lot 78.