Steve Watson

Zombie Iconography in a Portrait of St Catherine

A post on the Althouse blog discussing the Vogue cover of ‘Dr’ Jill Biden compared it to the figure of Catherine in a painting by Raphael.

She commented that

Catherine’s hands do not hang limply at her sides. They are expressive of ecstasy and placed in locations that would seem truly odd on a modern-day politico. Unlike Jill, she’s got her weight shifted to one side, and also unlike Jill, she’s leaning on what we know to be the device used to torture-murder-martyr her. 

The hands of Raphael’s Catherine seem oddly positioned because they’re misplaced. Catherine is in the pose for nude females known as venus pudica, and her hands are supposed to be covering her modesty – in this variant both the breasts and the pudendum. Raphael has modified the lower hand so that it is holding her clothing, but the upper hand is doing nothing useful.

Statues in this pose and with a pronounced twist to the body (contrapposto) often have some kind of an elaboration which can be used to give the statue extra support. (Even drapery would work in marble.) I notice that in the painting she’s leaning on her wheel, and I would guess that Raphael just thought that some such elaboration was a necessary part of the figure.