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Libert & Associés
126
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17th CENTURY ITALIANCOLE. The Penitent Magdalene
Canvas
Heig…
See original version (French)
126
-
17th CENTURY ITALIANCOLE. The Penitent Magdalene
Canvas
Heig…
See original version (French)
Estimate €2,000 - €3,000
Voluntary lot
Description
17th CENTURY ITALIANCOLE. The Penitent Magdalene
Canvas
Height 97.4 cm - Width 79.8 cm
The theme of the Penitent Magdalene was very popular in Italy in the first half of the 17th century, particularly among painters influenced by Caravaggio and his dramatic naturalism. Depicted withdrawn from the world, absorbed in meditation or prayer, Mary Magdalene became the exemplary image of conversion, repentance and the interior life, in the spiritual context of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
The artists who followed Caravaggio favoured a deeply human and realistic vision of the saint: the gestures are simple, the emotions restrained, the symbolic objects - skull, book, extinguished candle or bottle of perfume - recall the vanity of earthly goods and the hope of salvation. Caravaggesque chiaroscuro intensifies this atmosphere of silence and contemplation, drawing the figure out of the shadows with a concentrated, almost spiritual light.
In the work of painters such as Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi and Bartolomeo Manfredi, the penitent Magdalene oscillates between sensitive realism and the ideal of devotion, becoming one of the major subjects of Italian Baroque religious painting.
Here, the painter of our Magdalene offers an interpretation that evokes versions by Guido Reni, Francesco Furini, Gabriel Blanchard and Nicolas Régnier.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
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