The Beheading of St. Catherine

Chapel of SS. Clare and Catherine, Barcelona Cathedral

The crowned man in the gallery holding a sword is the pagan emperor Maxentius, who has ordered the beheading. The man in red on the far left should be the priest Adrian, St. Catherine's spiritual advisor.

Skin color appears to be an index of a person's distance from Christ. The emperor has the darkest skin of all. Adrian has light skin, and the lightest complexion of all graces the severed head of St. Catherine.

Read more about images of St. Catherine.

Photographed at the cathedral by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.