Empress and Porphyrius Visit St. Catherine in Prison

Embroidered picture: Empress and Porphyrius Visit St. Catherine in Prison. The Netherlands, c. AD 1430. Embroidered picture: Empress and Porphyrius Visit St. Catherine in Prison. The Netherlands, c. AD 1430. Copyright Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 47.101.62.

'The Empress and Porphyrius visit St. Catherine in Prison' is an embroidered picture in the shape of a roundel, which originally may have been attached to a larger textile, as for instance an altar frontal or ecclesiastical vestment. It was made in the (southern) Netherlands around AD 1430, in the or nué technique, with silk and metal thread on linen. It measures 16.5 cm in diameter.

Legend tells that the Empress Augusta, wife of Emperor Maximilian (r. 286-305), together with Porphyrius, the military commander of Alexandria, visited St. Catherine in prison, where the two visitors were converted to Christianity. Eventually Catherine was beheaded. The monastery at Mount Sinai is named after her.

Source: FREEMAN, Margaret B. (1955). 'The legend of Saint Catherine told in embroidery', The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 13, no. 10 (June 1955), pp. 281–93.

Metropolitan Museum of Art online catalogue (retrieved 9 November 2016).

WV

Last modified on Friday, 09 December 2016 18:39
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