Wait...is that Jesus knitting ??

Did Jesus knit ? Looking closer at this picture Jesus is not knitting. He is holding some grapes with Mary. This painting was done by Ambrosius Benson . Very little is known about him or this painting...it's not dated. However, the Virgin and Child are seated with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara. All of the women in this picture seem to look almost identical. Each have long curly red hair and all are wearing some sort of hat or crown. I don't know why Mary would be wearing black...but she is. I am also digging the leopard skin shawl . Was it chilly ? If it's chilly why is Jesus wearing some sort of smock ?


Ambrosius Benson (c. 1495/1500, Ferrara or Milan – 1550, Flanders) was an Italian painter who became a part of the Northern Renaissance.
While many surviving paintings have been attributed, there is very little known of him from records, and he tended not to sign his work. He is believed to be responsible for mainly religious art, but also painted portraits on commission. He sometime painted from classical sources, often setting the figures in modern-dress, or a contemporary domestic setting. In his lifetime he was successful; he had a large workshop, his work was sold internationally and he was especially popular in Spain.
Benson became popular as a source for pastiche with 19th-century painters, who are sometimes known as the "followers of Benson". In particular his many variations of the Magdalen and Sibilla Persica were further copied and became popular with contemporary buyers.

The Meaning of Pastiche:  
 A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.

	The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena
	c. 1490 painted by Ambrogio Bergognone

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena

c. 1490 painted by Ambrogio Bergognone

Saint Catherine of Alexandria: also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar, who became a Christian around the age of fourteen, and converted hundreds of people to Christianity. Over 1,100 years following her martyrdom, St. Joan of Arc identified Catherine as one of the Saints who appeared to her and counseled her.

 The meaning of hagiography: 
refers to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term "hagiology", the study of hagiography, is also current in English, although less common.
 

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494)

Saint Barbara :
 was an early Christian saint and martyr. Accounts place her in the 3rd century in Nicomedia, present-site Turkey or in Heliopolis in Egypt. There is no reference to her in the authentic early Christian writings, nor in the original recension of Saint Jerome's martyrology. Her name can be traced to the 7th century, and veneration of her was common, especially in the East, from the 9th century. Because of doubts about the historicity of her legend, she was removed from the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite in 1969.
Saint Barbara is often portrayed with miniature chains and a tower. As one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Barbara continues to be a popular saint in modern times, perhaps best known as the patron saint of armorers, artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because of her old legend's association with lightning, and also of mathematicians. Many of the thirteen miracles in a 15th-century French version of her story turn on the security she offered that her devotees would not die without making confession and receiving extreme unction.