Preserved for Eternity on Obsidian : A Baroque Painting Showing the Miracle of Milk at St. catherine of Alexandria's Martyrdom

Abstract

"After the beheading of St. catherine of Alexandria, milk flowed from her body instead of blood. Artists almost never depicted this scene in art, preferring to paint the more dramatic moment of catherine with the infamous spiked wheels of torture or of her kneeling before her executioner, as he prepares to slice off her head with a sword. in a painting in the collection of the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri, the artist paired this uncommon subject matter with an equally rare support, a piece of obsidian, the mottled pattern of which forms part of the composition. Encased in a richly carved and gilded seventeenth-century french frame, this painting reveals the contemporary fashion for sophisticated paintings on semi-precious stone."--First paragraph.