Saint Catherine in Prison Converting the Empress Faustina to Christianity, Flanked by Saints Saturnius and Simon

Prints and Drawings

1570/71

Federico Zuccaro
Italian, 1540/41–1609

This is an early developed compositional modello for the fresco in the choir of the church of Santa Caterina dei Funari, Rome, datable to 1570/71—a commission that Livio Agresti began (see adjacent drawing) and Federico finished. Ultimately, the fresco was changed from a basamento to an overdoor, as documented by two further studies. Like the Livio Agresti drawing on view nearby, this multilayered work shows Saint Catherine continuing to fight for her cause even while behind bars. The blue paper used as a support, along with the carefully employed washes and gouache, deepens the dank ambience of the saint’s period of incarceration.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Federico Zuccaro
Title: Saint Catherine in Prison Converting the Empress Faustina to Christianity, Flanked by Saints Saturnius and Simon
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1570–1571
Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with lead white gouache, on blue laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right in pen and brown ink: “Tade Zuccaro”
Dimensions: Sight: 19.6 × 39.5 cm (7 3/4 × 15 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of John A. Bross in memory of Louise Smith Bross
Reference Number: 2014.1147
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/223807/manifest.json

John A. Gere, Mostra di disegni dell’Zuccari (Florence, 1966), under no. 59.
John A. Gere, “The Lawrence Philipps-Rosenbach Zuccaro Album,” Master Drawings VIII:13 (1970), p. 129, pl. 8.
Anna Melograni, “Il cantiere cinquecentesco di S. Caterina dei Funari e le pitture della cappella Cesi,” Storia dell’arte 67 (1989), pp. 219–39, no. 9 (ill.).
E. James Mundy, Renaissance into Baroque: Italian Master Drawings by the Zuccari, 1550–1600 (Milwaukee, 1989), p. 203, fig. 33.
Louise Smith Bross, The Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia: A Study of the Development of Art, Architecture, and Patronage in Counter-Reformation Rome, Ph.D. dissertation University of Chicago, 1994, pp. 373 and 885.
William M. Griswold and Linda Wolk-Smith, Sixteenth-Century Italian Drawings in New York Collections (New Work, 1994), under no. 84.
Bert W. Meijer, Maestri dell’Invenzione (Florence, 1995), under no. 72.
Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl (eds.), Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy: Ritual, Spectacle, Image (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 280–97, pl. 63.

London, The Lawrence Gallery, “One Hundred Original Drawings by Zucchero, Andrea deal Sarto, Polidore da Caravaggio, and Fra Bartolomeo,” Apr. 1836.

John MacGowan (second half of 18th century), Edinburgh [Lugt 1496]. Sold, Thomas Philipe, London, Jan. 26, 1804, lot 809. William Young Ottley (1771–1836), London. Sold, Thomas Philipe, London, June 6, 1814, lot 1488. Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), London [Lugt 2445]; Samuel Woodburn (1786–1853), London, from 1830; sold, Christie’s, London, June 4, 1860, part of lot 1074, to Sir Thomas Philipps; by descent to Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick. Dr. Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach, Philadelphia, 1930; Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation, Philadelphia. The British Rail Pension Fund, 1978; sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Jan. 11, 1990, lot 41. Sold Christie’s, New York, Jan. 28, 1999, lot 36, to John A. Bross; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2014.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Saint Catherine in Prison Converting the Empress Faustina to Christianity, Flanked by Saints Saturnius and Simon

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Inscriptions

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.