Sainte Catherine recevant les stigmates

Girolamo del Pacchia's Sainte Catherine Recevant les Stigmates, painted around 1500 and now in the Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse, depicts Catherine of Siena receiving the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — in her mystic vision of 1375. Catherine of Siena, unlike Catherine of Alexandria, was a historical Dominican mystic whose extraordinary spiritual experiences, including her reception of invisible stigmata, made her one of the most celebrated women of the late medieval Church, eventually named a Doctor of the Church. Pacchia, a Sienese painter working alongside Sodoma and others in the circle of Sienese High Renaissance production, brings his characteristic blend of Raphael-influenced elegance and Sienese warmth to this mystical subject.

The composition depicts the kneeling saint in an attitude of mystical rapture, receiving the stigmata rays from a vision of the crucified Christ. Pacchia's Raphael-influenced figure style shows in the graceful figure and idealized facial type. The palette is warm and luminous, characteristic of Sienese High Renaissance production.