Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Painting • Paintings

Created in 1635 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the religion & mythology tradition. Anthony van Dyck worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

As Oil on canvas (43 x 35 3/4 in. (109.2 x 90.8 cm); with added strips 44 1/8 x 37 in. (112.1 x 94 cm)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Anthony van Dyck's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The iconography draws on scripture and classical myth, but the emotional weight is entirely human.

Today the painting is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Anthony van Dyck's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”