When the Saints Go Arting In: Agatha

Today I learned about Saint Agatha of Sicily, who is the patron saint of breast cancer patients. Agatha’s story includes tales of terrible torture ordered by a man she didn’t want to marry, and some of that torture involved the removal of her breasts. That is not — by anyone’s stretch of the imagination — a nice story, so it feels almost trivialised when you discover that in art, Agatha is depicted serving her own breasts up on a plate.

Usually, like in this one by Francisco de Zurbaran, the artist has fanciful notions about how pert boobs are, either in person or severed and plonked on a plate.

Here, Giovanni Busi considered the idea of just painting a lady with her tits on a plate to be a bit boring, so he has her squeezing one and separating both with a palm frond, which almost makes it look like she’s playing some sort of nippled theremin.

Some images show Agatha just getting deadset bored with holding up a mammary-laden tray, as if she’s come through the swinging doors of the kitchen at a diner after the thousandth teenager today ordered the steaming norks.

Here, Guido Cagnacci has painted Agatha asking God why her boobs and eyes both point in two completely different directions. I’m nicknaming this picture ‘South West’.

This one’s just bizarrely casual for a picture of ladies who should by all accounts be pretty uncomfortable. It shows Saint Agatha with her breasts on a plate, Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate, and Saint Apollonia, who I guess hasn’t ordered yet.

At least Lorenzo Lippi starts to get it right, painting Agatha with a set of bosom-shears and a look that says “can you BELIEVE they did this?”, acknowledging that something bad has actually happened. He did paint her with a pretty robust cleavage though, so let’s give Lorenzo a five for drama and a zero for science.

Mind you, you can still buy titty-shaped cakes in Sicily in honour of Saint Agatha, so it seems that nobody is really giving this example of actual boob carnage the gravitas it deserves. I mean, this looks like she’s offering seconds at a barbecue.

So there. That’s Saint Agatha and the mystery of why she isn’t depicted more often presenting her plated nuggets to God with a “What the f**k is THIS” look on her face.

Sorry.