The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine

The son of a Genoese painter, Cambiaso was influenced by the Roman fresco painter Perino del Vaga, who had lived in Genoa in the 1520s. The almost block-like rendering of the figures is a hallmark of the artist's later drawing style. The work's powerful, close-knit grouping represents a return to canonical High Renaissance images of the Holy Family, away from more complex, Mannerist composition. Catherine of Alexandria's mystical marriage to Christ, which transpired in a vision after her baptism, was evidence of her extreme devotion. As a consequence of this union, she later refused to marry the emperor Maxentius, and was tortured on a spiked wheel, visible here to her right.