Netherlandish, early 16th century

With Joanna Booth, London;

Private Collection, Washington, D.C.;

With Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York;

From whom acquired.

According to the hagiographies, Saint Barbara was the beautiful daughter of the pagan nobleman Dioscurus. Because of her striking beauty, her father kept her confined to a tower, hidden from the outside world. Eventually, he began to entertain proposals for her hand in marriage, but Barbara revealed that she had secretly converted to Christianity. Enraged, her father handed her over to the provincial prefect who ordered her to be tortured and executed. According to the legend, Dioscurus himself carried out the execution and, upon returning home, was struck by lightning and reduced to ashes.

Saint Barbara is portrayed adorned only with an elaborate headdress, and standing within the tower with a padlocked door. This relief diverges from more conventional depictions of the saint, which typically show her fully clothed beside a tower or holding a miniature version of it.