Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/464

Rh rials of her life: the viola on which she played, and a manuscript in her exquisite chirography, also a service book illuminated by Caterina, and, still more important, one of her pictures, a "Madonna and Child," inserted in the wall on the left of the chapel, which is admirable for the beauty of expression in the face of the Holy Mother.

We cannot trace Caterina's artist life step by step, but she doubtless worked with the same spirit of consecration and prayer as did that Beato whom we call Angelico, in his Florentine convent, a century earlier. Caterina executed many miniatures, and her easel pictures were not large. These were owned by private families. She is known to us by two pictures of "St. Ursula folding her Robe about her Companions." One is in the Bologna Gallery, the other in the Academy in Venice. The first is on a wooden panel, and was painted when the artist was thirty-nine years old. The Saint is represented as unnaturally tall, the figures of her virgins being very small. The mantle and robe of St. Ursula are of rich brocade ornamented with floral designs, while on each side of her is a white flag, on which is a red cross. The face of the saint is so attractive that one forgets the elongation of her figure. There is a delicacy in the execution, combined with a freedom and firmness of handling fully equal to the standard of her school and time. Many honors were paid to the memory of Caterina de Vigri. She was chosen as the protectress of Academies and Art Institutions, and in the eighteenth century a medal was coined, on which she is represented as painting