Purple seems to be cropping up rather often in online challenges. After the purple and gold combo for Mixed Media Monday a couple of weeks ago, Wednesday Stamper is now running a purple challenge.

This time, however, inspiration struck a lot closer to home than the improbable collage of dancer-turned-empress Theodora, which I made for Mixed Media Monday.

Somehow, purple’s imperial connection made me think of my great-great-grandmother Caterina, a woman so formidable her own family called her Caterina the Great, after the Russian empress.

Caterina the great

She didn’t have the easiest of personalities. An aristocrat, she had a hard time adapting to a world where titles meant increasingly little. She once confided to a friend that “a man who is not a noble does not look like a man to me.” She also sent away a hapless postman who had dared tried to make a delivery to Mrs Caterina (rather than Lady Caterina) saying: “There is no Mrs Caterina here—there never was and never will be.”

Her children had a healthy dose of respect for her, and if they occasionally forgot to treat her with due deference, Caterina was quick to put them in their place. Once, she met her son, my great-grandfather Raffaele Alfredo, in the street. He made the dreadful mistake of not taking off his hat when he approached her.

“What is your hat still doing on your head?” she chastised him.

“But mama, you take your hat off to a lady, and you are just my mother,” he said.

“And what is your mother—a dog?” she replied.

So here is my little tribute to Caterina, who had the pride and demeanour of an empress, if not the title. Well, this, and the fact that my soon-to-be-born daughter will be named Caterina after her.