Carlo Crivelli, 'Saint Mary Magdalene', probably about 1491-4

This stylish woman is Mary Magdalene – who ‘gave herself to all delights of the body’ – holding the pot of oil with which she anointed Christ’s feet. She has a circlet of pearls around her head, and her elongated features and fingers emphasise her elegance.

Although a biblical figure, she is dressed in the height of fifteenth-century fashion, her sleeves slashed to reveal her fine linen shift and her blue overdress unbuttoned at the front to show off her red dress. A red cloak interlined with green and trimmed with gold falls in heavy folds at her feet. Mary Magdalene was often depicted in medieval art wearing red, and with loose, uncovered hair. By the Middle Ages Mary had become a conflation of three separate women: the unnamed woman described as a sinner in the Bible who anointed Christ’s feet with her hair; Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha, who anointed his feet with expensive ointment; and Mary of Egypt, who had sex outside marriage – seen as immoral in the Middle Ages – but later renounced her actions.

In a kind of Renaissance virtual reality, Crivelli plays with our knowledge that we are looking at a flat painted surface by creating the illusion of three-dimensional space. Mary stands on a shelf in front of a curved stone recess, rather like a statue, casting a shadow on the wall behind her. The stone itself is cracked and we can see where pieces have fallen off at the edges. Two stone spheres project forwards above her head, and her knobbly toes in their red sandals protrude over the edge of the shelf, as if she is about to step forwards into our world.