Saint Praxedis

Saint Praxedis shows a young woman in a voluminous red gown with white lace cuffs and a white scarf, bending forward as she holds a golden crucifix over a highly ornamented silver urn, into which a red liquid appears to drip. The figure is set against a dark architectural left and a bright blue sky and stone façades on the right, creating a strong vertical stance and a shallow, stage-like depth. The palette contrasts warm red and skin tones with cool blues and whites, and the light models the satin, lace, and drapery with careful, precise brushwork typical of Vermeer’s refined Dutch Baroque realism.