Plautilla Nelli (Attr.), Saint Catherine with a Lily, VI century, Dominican Monastery of San Vincenzo Ferrer in Prato
Prato’s Catherine
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Nelli and her nuns worked from a cartoon like the masters of her time. This small saint Catherine, from Dominican Monastery of San Vincenzo Ferrer in Prato, was restored by AWA in 2017 for display at the Uffizi Galleries show: Art and Devotion in Savonarola’s Footsteps. Curator Fausta Navarro describes the technique used in Nelli’s workshop in the exhibition catalog: The “holy laboratory” managed its serial production through the widely-used technique of reproduction with the aid of a cartoon. As is well known, cartoons are sheets of paper on which the design is drawn, with the same dimensions as the work to be painted, and then used to transfer the lines of the composition from the paper to the final support. The drawing on the cartoon generally corresponded to a smaller sketch previously drawn on paper by the artist and preserved among the precious materials shared by the entire workshop.