• Wertheimer [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Most paintings of saints display the way they were martyred, even if they're alive and well in the painting. St. Bartholomew will be holding a flaying knife, and that kind of thing. And then there's St. Agatha.

    Portraits of St. Agatha in the West are readily identified by the presence of a platter holding her severed breasts, as at right. Sometimes she also holds the pincers used to remove them. In one image just one severed breast hangs by a cord from her fingers. https://www.christianiconography.info/agatha.html