Saint Catherine

This etching, attributed to Rubens, is based on one of his ceiling paintings for the Jesuit church in Antwerp. These were created in 1620–21 and later destroyed. Catherine of Alexandria is said to have used learned arguments to convert fifty philosophers to Christianity. Only the emperor remained unmoved. He tried to have Catherine tortured with spiked wheels. When the wheels shattered, he had her beheaded. Rubens depicts her standing on a broken wheel, symbolic of her martyrdom.