Guido Reni, 'Saint Mary Magdalene', about 1634-5

Saint Mary Magdalene is here depicted with eyes raised heavenward, a sign of her devotion and penance. The Gospels of the New Testament describe Mary of Magdala as one of Christ’s followers, a witness to his burial and resurrection. She was later identified with another biblical figure, an unnamed woman understood to be a repentant prostitute – an identification which is almost certainly untrue.

The image of Mary Magdalene as a sinner who was redeemed through her devotion to Christ pervaded representations in the seventeenth century. Guido Reni has painted the saint with her iconic long blonde hair, indicative of her status as a fallen woman and a reference to the story of the sinner who washed Christ’s feet and dried them with her hair. She is dressed in her typical garb of a red cloak loosely draped around her, beneath which she appears to be naked. The nondescript background provides the painting with minimal narrative, suggesting perhaps that this was a work intended for quiet meditation.

Reni frequently depicted Mary Magdalene in penance – the artist and his studio produced dozens of variants on the theme. This painting would appear to derive from one of the many full-length depictions of the saint in the wilderness painted by Reni and his studio in the 1620s and 1630s, one of which is today in the Galleria Nazionale d‘Arte Antica, Rome. Another bust-length version of the saint, somewhat similar to this work but closer in design to the full-length Roman painting, is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Reni and his studio began to focus on reduced-size copies and variants of popular compositions from around 1630 onwards, when the master was facing increasing economic pressures.

At one time, this work was considered to have been painted by Reni’s studio assistants, but it is now generally accepted as an autograph, its iridescent flesh tones and fluid brushwork consistent with Reni’s style in the mid-1630s. Mary Magdalene’s pose and her intricate, delicately highlighted curls are reminiscent of another autograph Penitent Magdalene ascribed a similar date (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore).

Reni’s numerous interpretations of this subject indicate that they were enormously successful; in seventeenth-century Europe, his paintings of Mary Magdalene were popular among seats of religious power, the aristocracy and wealthy middle class alike. There are several explanations for such popularity. The sacrament of Penance, for example, became increasingly significant in the period following the Council of Trent, and penitent saints were frequently portrayed by artists as examples for viewers to follow. Mary Magdalene’s sexuality is also associated with her popularity as a subject, but Reni’s paintings do not present her as sexually inviting; rather, they illustrate the dangers of temptation and bodily pleasure, while underlying the importance of sinners’ penance and redemption.