Katharina von Alexandrien

Katharina von Alexandrien (Saint Catherine of Alexandria) was among the most popular saints in late medieval and early Renaissance devotion — a virgin martyr of legendary learning who confounded fifty pagan philosophers in debate before being tortured on a spiked wheel. Andrea di Bartolo's panel of the saint would have served as an altarpiece element or devotional panel in a Sienese church or private chapel, placed within a program of female saints that Catherine frequently headed by virtue of her prominence in hagiographic literature. The Sienese tradition gave Catherine particular importance because Siena itself was intensely Marian and favored holy women as intercessory figures.

Catherine is identified by her attributes — the broken wheel of her attempted martyrdom, the sword of her eventual beheading, and the palm of martyrdom — rendered against gold ground with the linear elegance characteristic of Sienese devotional painting. Andrea di Bartolo's Catherine has the refined, slightly almond-eyed face type consistent across his saint figures.