Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria

Workshop of Paolo Veneziano · c. 1350

Medium

Tempera on panel

Original size

77 × 49.7 cm (30 1/4 × 19 5/8 in.); Framed: 101.6 × 59.7 cm (40 × 23 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

This devotional panel pairs two of Christianity's most venerated saints in the solemn, luminous manner that defined Venetian painting of the mid-fourteenth century. Paolo Veneziano was the dominant figure in Venice during this period, and his workshop produced altarpieces and devotional panels that stood at the crossroads of Byzantine tradition and the emerging Gothic sensibility sweeping through Italy. The gilded ground, elongated figures, and delicate linear drapery reflect the older Byzantine inheritance, while a subtle softening of form hints at the naturalistic currents beginning to reshape Italian art. Tempera on panel demanded extraordinary precision — pigments mixed with egg yolk and applied in thin, controlled layers, with no room for correction once dry. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this panel as part of a collection tracing the full arc of European medieval painting, making it a touchstone for understanding Venice's distinctive artistic identity in the decades before the Renaissance transformed it. A faithful hand-painted oil reproduction brings the warmth and quiet authority of this work into a domestic setting, translating the gold-ground reverence of the original into a medium that holds light differently — and no less beautifully.