New! Saint Catherine of Alexandria – Mary Lizzie Macomber – Many Sizes – Catholic Art

This beautiful and precise portrait of St. Catherine of Alexandria (287-305 AD) shows the young Saint gazing in rapt devotion towards a portrait of the Madonna and Child. She has turned from reading the spiritual books at her back, and she clutches at her heart, as though giving it to Jesus and Mary. The lily, of course, symbolizes her purity. The wheels in the mosaics on the wall foreshadow the type of martyrdom she would receive at the hands of the Roman government. She was intellectually brilliant and debated pagan philosophers. She is a patron of lawyers, philosophers, teachers, unmarried women, and many others. She was only 18 when she was killed. Her Feast Day is November 25. There is kind of a meta commentary about the relation between devotional art and the faithful built into this picture. Mary Lizzie Macomber (1861–1916) was an intelligent and highly admired painter in her day. An American that one recent commentator has called "not quite a Pre-Raphaelite," she was often assumed to be a Catholic because of all the Catholic paintings she did. In a biographical article by Charles A. Parker, “Mary L. Macomber,” (The International Studio, 1912), he said she reached a point where so many people assumed she was Catholic that Macomber, a Quaker, “drew back from the religious subjects” she had been painting. Ever aspiring, she seems like she was perched on the edge of Catholicism but unable to get inside. There is a sorrow to Macomber's photograph, shown above; yes, true, a wan, melancholic, and wistful look was the fashion for artists of her generation, but I don't get the feeling that it's just a performance for her. I don't think she's joking. Look at her picture of "Night with Her Daughter, Sleep." Night looks like her, minus the desolation, but still with the distance and isolation. There are a couple of dozen Catholic titles of hers that show up in exhibition lists back when they were painted, and they are described in favorable reviews with tantalizing detail. But, alas, we are unlikely to see them. Only a handful are known to exist. Some of her work was lost in a fire in her studio in 1904. Much of it disappeared into private collections in the early 1900s and hasn't appeared since. What does remain of her work is simply exquisite. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolists, her pictures occupy this fascinating place halfway between dream and reality. We're postulating that this comes from her divided self, perched at the window of life, looking in. There are a couple more pieces we hope to list. We wish we had a lot more. (source: Charles A. Parker, “Mary L. Macomber,” The International Studio, vol. 47, nos. 185–188 (July–October 1912), pp. 61–64.) 1896. 32.8 x 24.1 inches. She gifted it to the Boson Museum of Fine Arts. ** IMPORTANT ** THE IMAGE IS SMALLER THAN THE PAPER! There is a blank border around the image. Approximately 0.5" wide for 5x7, 1.3" for 8.5x11, 1.6" for 11x14, and 1.75" for 13x17 and 16x20. For the two poster sizes, 18x24 and 24x36, we use 0.5" borders. We do this because the ratio of the rectangle of the art almost never matches the rectangle of the paper, and if it did happen to match one size, it would not match the others. Most fine art printers do this because otherwise they’d have to crop the art or warp it to make it fit the paper. The border looks good. It gives the picture a faux matted appearance. There is almost always a little more border either on the left-right sides, or the top-bottom, depending on whether the ratio of the art is wider or taller than the paper. We make Archival Quality fine art prints: – Acid-free paper– Archival pigments – Cardboard backer for sizes 11x14 and less. – Above story of the art– Enclosed in a tight-fitting, crystal-clear bag.– Rated to last 200+ years without fading if kept dry and out of the direct sun. Thanks for your interest! +JMJ+Sue & JohnLincoln, Nebraska “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art.”~ St. Pope John Paul II Original image is out-of-copyright. Descriptive text and any image alterations (hence the whole new image) © by Sue Kouma Johnson – Classic Catholic Art.