Saint Barbara

The palm frond and open book in this figure’s hands suggest her identification as Saint Barbara, the beautiful, pure, and learned daughter of a pagan king said to have lived in the third or fourth century. The large structure at her side is a reference to the fortified tower where she was imprisoned by her father to isolate her from the outside world, and was miraculously converted to Christianity. After the Virgin Mary, Saint Barbara was the most venerated female saint in the late Middle Ages. The devotion to this virgin martyr was particularly strong in the Low Countries and the Lower Rhine. Here, the treatment of her cascading spiral curls suggests a Lower Rhenish workshop active in Kleve or Kalkar.