Italian, North, 'Saint Catherine of Alexandria', about 1508-10

Technical evidence suggests this painting was once a portrait, but it was altered to represent a saint. An infrared reflectogram reveals that significant changes were made. The hair of the figure was originally completely different. It was tightly braided, with the braids looped back on either side of the lady’s head and just touching her shoulders. Her ear was fully exposed and only the back of her head was covered. Her hand was resting on a different object, and her dress was decorated with gold around the edges. Later, after the dress and background had been completed, she was given loose hair and the attributes of Saint Catherine of Alexandria – a spiked wheel and martyr’s palm.

Saint Catherine was the daughter of Constus, Roman governor of Alexandria. She was married to Christ in a dream and converted the philosophers who were recruited by the Roman Emperor to dispute with her. She was then tied to a spiked wheel but this was broken by divine intervention. Eventually she was beheaded. The palm branch is carried by all Christian martyrs; in this case there are two dark red fruits projecting on thread-like stems attached to two of the upper leaves, presumably intended to represent dates.

After varnishing, the gold decoration on the dress and hair was painted over and a veil was added. The use of the pigment lead-tin yellow for the changes to the hair suggests that even this last reworking was carried out at a relatively early date.

The sitter may have asked for the portrait to be changed as she wished to be identified with her name saint or patron saint by adopting her attributes, or the artist might simply have decided to recycle a rejected or neglected work.There are two other examples in the National Gallery of portraits in which sitters took on the attributes of their name saint, both by Giovanni Bellini: A Dominican with the Attributes of Saint Peter Martyr and Portrait of Fra Teodoro of Urbino as Saint Dominic (on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). A later example, from the early 1530s, is Sebastiano del Piombo’s Portrait of a Lady, who is given the attributes of Saint Agatha.

The picture was probably painted in the first decade of the sixteenth century, although we are not sure by whom. It was previously thought to be by Garofalo, although the way in which it is painted is not typical of him. It came to the National Gallery in the Layard Bequest in 1916.