Saint Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers

Livio Agresti · 1562/63

Medium

Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over black chalk, on cream laid paper, pieced

Original size

Sight: 50.5 × 39.5 cm (19 15/16 × 15 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

Saint Catherine Disputing with the Philosophers is a masterwork of Mannerist draughtsmanship — a composition alive with intellectual tension, rendered in Livio Agresti's characteristic layering of pen, wash, and white gouache on laid paper. Agresti spent much of his career in Rome, absorbing the influence of Perino del Vaga and the broader Roman Mannerist circle before returning to work across central Italy. His handling of light here is unusually sophisticated for a drawing: the white heightening carves out figures from shadow with a sculptural confidence more typical of fresco preparation, suggesting this sheet may have served as a study for a larger decorative commission. The pieced support — multiple sheets joined together — hints at the ambitious scale Agresti envisioned for the final work. The subject itself, Saint Catherine debating and converting a gathering of pagan scholars at the court of Maxentius, was a favourite among Counter-Reformation patrons, offering a model of faith triumphant through reason rather than martyrdom alone. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Agresti's spare, luminous draftsmanship into the warmth and texture of oil on canvas, preserving the dynamism of his figures and the quiet drama of the original while giving the work a presence suited to any wall.