Saint Margaret (c. 1520–1530): Art, History and Details

Saint Margaret (c. 1520–1530) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Antonello Gaggini (Italian, 1478–1536).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Gaggini was a member of a large family of sculptors whose Palermo workshop supplied monumental religious sculptures for the cathedrals of Palermo and Messina in Sicily and Montelione in Calabria. After 1507 Antonello himself worked for 15 years to produce marble sculptures for Palermo Cathedral. This figure of the legendary virgin martyr, Saint Margaret, was probably commissioned for one of these ecclesiastical foundations, possibly the chancel of Palermo Cathedral. The saint is shown reading from a book of hours (a sign of her piety) and trampling upon a dragon, the symbol of Satan. The dragon became the attribute by which she is recognized in sacred art.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Margaret
• Date: c. 1520–1530
• Creator attribution: Antonello Gaggini (Italian, 1478–1536)
• Culture: Italy, Sicily, Palermo, 16th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 139.7 x 54.6 x 18.2 cm (55 x 21 1/2 x 7 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.564

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "'St. Margaret' by Antonello Gagini." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 30, no. 1 (January 1943): 3-5.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.