Southern Germany, 18th Century, St. Barbara

Saint Barbara was a third-century Christian martyr imprisoned in a tower and later decapitated by her father, Dioscoro, as punishment for not wanting to marry and refusing to profess paganism. The painter depicts the saint with her various symbols, with a monstrance in her right hand and the palm frond of martyrdom in the left. She doesn’t wear the usual crown, as she is often portrayed as a princess. The tower, another iconographic symbol of hers, is behind her in a mountainous landscape., Oil on canvas, 43 x 33,5 cm