Henrich Füger began his career at an exceptionally young age, painting his first miniatures at the age of eight. In 1764 he began his studies at the Hohe Karlsschule in Stuttgart. After a brief stint studying law, he returned to art, studying under Adam Friedrich Oeser in Leipzig where he became familiar with classical art. In 1776 he won a two-year scholarship to study in Rome, where he met Anton Raphael Mengs, Jacques-Louis David, Angelica Kauffman and Gavin Hamilton. He returned to Vienna in 1783, when he became vice-director of the Akademie der bildenden Künste. He remained a popular artist in the Viennese court until his work was slowed by an eye ailment around 1783.

The present painting is Füger’s modello for the altarpiece in the parish church of Smolnik, then part of Hungary, now in Slovakia. A second compositional study for the same altarpiece is in the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna (inv. no. 1072). The painting depicts the debate ordered by the Emperor Maxentius, where Catherine was forced to argue her beliefs against fifty pagan philosophers. She spoke so eloquently several of her advisories declared themselves Christians and were sentenced to death. After winning the debate, Catherine was tortured and imprisoned, and eventually condemned to death on a spiked breaking wheel.