Legend says, Catherine was a noble of Alexandria, who was obliged by her father to marry the Roman emperor. She refused to do so because of her “mystical marriage” to Christ but, because of it, she was condemned to multiple tortures, of which she got out unscathed, until she finally died decapitated.

As most of the rest of the martyr saints, she is usually accompanied by the palm and, in relation to her history, she is represented as a noble woman, often with a crown. Her most universal attributes are a wheel with broken spikes and a sword. In some representations, she appears stepping on a masculine figure, the emperor, who she refused and who was the one to submit her to the torture.