|
Executed by Reni for the Cardinal Antonio Santacroce, this painting of the Magdalene was presented by Valerio Santacroce to Cardinal Antonio Barberini in December 1641, after the death of its original owner. Its completion can be securely dated to 1633, the year in which Vizzani published an encomiastic description of the picture.
The image of the penitent Mary Magdalene enjoyed great popularity between the late sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century. Cardinal Baronius, in his hard-hitting polemics against Protestantism, employed the subject (along with that of the penitent St Peter) to emphasize the necessity and validity of penitence, a sacrament discarded by the reformers. The penitent Magdalene was something of a iconographic specialty for Reni, who executed various versions to please a public that prized them and continually requested them. The Barberini collection included an other Reni Magdalene with a Skull, similar to the present work but for the three-quarter length of the figure. Executed during the artist's brief sojourn in Rome in 1627, the second Barberini Magdalene has been identified in a private collection.
A splendid example of the mature style of Reni, the National Gallery's painting is characterized by a profound classicism in the monumental and noble figure of the saint. The refined chromatic range, lit by a cold and silvery light, is also typical of Reni's art in the 1630's. The Penitent Magdalene is chronologically connected, though problematically, to a third Barberini Magdalene attributed to Vouet or one of his close followers: datable to 1626-27, the composition of the latter painting is very close to that of the Reni.
|
