L'Alunno
Coronation of the Virgin: Detail, St. Agatha

1464-66
Tempera and gold on wood panel
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Unusually, St. Agatha holds one of her severed breasts by a cord from her hand rather than on a platter with its mate. Like four of the other saints in this register she gazes toward the central imago pietatis. It is also less usual for her to wear her blond hair up rather than long and flowing. She wears the nearly transparent veil seen in some of her other portraits.

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Photographed at the Pinacoteca Vaticana by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.