Detail of Rogier van der Weyden, Polyptych of the Nativity: St. Catherine of Alexandria
St. Catherine is a model of insouciance as she treads on her tormentor, Maxentius. Placing the martyr's persecutor beneath her feet is a trope found in a number of other medieval portraits. Her left hand holds the wheel by which Maxentius had hoped to frighten her into recanting her Christian faith.
View the entire polyptych.
Read more about St. Catherine of Alexandria and about the visual trope of the vanquished persecutor underfoot.
Photographed at the Cloisters by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.