Catarino da Venezia

The painter Catarino di Marco is recorded in the Venice area and in Dalmatia between 1365 and 1390. The first document hinting at his existence is a receipt for the dowry of his wife Franceschina di Nicoletto Garzoni, while his first work, a now lost cross painted for the church of Sant’Agnese in Venice in 1367, links him to another painter, Donato Veneziano, who was probably his master. Five years later, both men’s signatures appear on a panel with the Coronation of the Virgin now in the Fondazione Querini Stampalia () which has sparked a heated debate among scholars, who question Catarino’s involvement on account of a clear difference in style. Yet despite that, the two painters reappear jointly in 1386 when both were commissioned a crucifix and two small portable altars for the Dominican convent of San Platone in Zara. The same document reveals Catarino’s patronymic, which suggests that he was a son of the painter Marco di Martino, Paolo Veneziano’s brother.

The presence of the artists’ names in such cases as the Querini Stampalia panel may refer to their shared workshop, without necessarily pointing to the role of the artist who painted the work. Other pictures signed by Catarino include two panels in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice – a Coronation of the Virgin dated 1375 and a polyptych of the same subject – while the same iconographical theme is also found on a signed polytpych in the Walters Museum (inv. 37.635) and on a small panel in the Worcester Museum (inv. 1923.213). The last time the painter’s name is mentioned is in a document dated 25 October 1390 relating to the restoration of a crucifix in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Treviso.