Last in the list

The recorded title runs in order: the Madonna, then Catherine of Alexandria, then James the Greater, then "an angel" — indefinite article, lower case, at the end. Titles of this kind are compiled from what is identifiable, and identifiability follows a rank of its own: the sacred person first, the named saints next, the unnamed attendant last. The nine orders would place any angel above any human being. The entry places this one after two saints, because the entry describes a picture and not a heaven.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1529 and gives Lorenzo Lotto, an Italian painter, filed under High Renaissance. It measures 152 x 113.5 cm, and the recorded location is the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The measured colour family is blue, which is uncommon here — of the 224 works on this site, eight carry blue as a measured family, against 88 for brown. The subject fields are unusual too: alongside the religious categories the record files the entry under animal art, and specifically under cat.

The word "an"

An indefinite article is a rank statement in miniature. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael take the definite article and a proper name because there is one of each. An angel takes "an" because there are, by doctrine, uncountably many and no way to tell which this is. Sixteen titles in this catalogue name an archangel. The rest, like this one, name a category.