Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (Beccafumi)

Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c. 1528 by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Beccafumi.

Two sketches survive in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Uffizi, in Florence.

Under a canopy supported by angels, Mary enthroned, at the top of a flight of steps, looks at her infant son who rings Saint Catherine of Siena, kneeling on the right.

Its tone is influenced by the Madonna of the Baldacchino of Raphael and the works of Fra Bartolomeo.

What belongs to Beccafumi is the particular luminous and chromatic orchestration, made of an alternation between areas of deep shadow and illuminated ones, as well as soft and iridescent colors.