Fragment of altarpiece painting by Rogier van der Weyden
For the lost painting usually attributed to Correggio, see Magdalen in the Desert.
Rogier van der Weyden, The Magdalen Reading, 62.2 cm × 54.4 cm (24.5 in × 21.4 in). c. 1435–1438. Oil on mahogany, transferred from another panel. National Gallery, London.[1]
The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th-century oil-on-panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The panel, originally oak, was completed some time between 1435 and 1438 and has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period.[2] She is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. In Catholic tradition the Magdalen was conflated with both Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet of Jesus with oil[3] and the unnamed "sinner" of Luke 7:36–50. Iconography of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted.
The background of the painting had been overpainted with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956 revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalene and the kneeling figure with its bare foot protruding in front of her, with a landscape visible through a window. The two partially seen figures are both cut off at the edges of the London panel. The figure above her has been identified as belonging to a fragment in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, which shows the head of Saint Joseph, while another Lisbon fragment, showing what is believed to be Saint Catherine of Alexandria, is thought to be from the same larger work.[4] The original altarpiece was a sacra conversazione,[5][6] known only through a drawing, Virgin and Child with Saints, in Stockholm's Nationalmuseum, which followed a partial copy of the painting that probably dated from the late 16th century. The drawing shows that The Magdalen occupied the lower right-hand corner of the altarpiece. The Lisbon fragments are each a third of the size of The Magdalen, which measures 62.2 cm × 54.4 cm (24.5 in × 21.4 in).
Although internationally successful in his lifetime, van der Weyden fell from view during the 17th century, and was not rediscovered until the early 19th century. The Magdalen Reading can first be traced to an 1811 sale. After passing through the hands of a number of dealers in the Netherlands, the panel was purchased by the National Gallery, London, in 1860 from a collector in Paris. It is described by art historian Lorne Campbell as "one of the great masterpieces of 15th-century art and among van der Weyden's most important early works."[7]
^"National Gallery: NG654". National Gallery. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
^Panofsky pp. 258–9 (writing before the painting had been cleaned of its overpaint): "Soon after the completion of the 'Descent from the Cross,' that is to say, in 1436–1437, Roger would seem to have produced two works in which the youthful feminine types of the Escorial picture, still vaguely Flémallesque, appear refined to greater spirituality: a major composition, apparently a Virgo inter Virgines, of which only a fragment, the 'Magdalen Reading' in the National Gallery at London, survives; and the beautiful "Madonna Duran" or "Madonna in Red" in the Prado".
^John 12:3–8, Luke 7:36–48 is also relevant.
^"The Magdalen Reading". National Gallery, London. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
^A 'sacred conversation' is an informal depiction of the Virgin and Child among a group of saints.
^"Bust of St Catherine ?; Bust of 'St Joseph' Archived 2009-10-01 at the Wayback Machine. Museu Gulbenkian, 19 April 2009. Retrieved 25 December 2010.
^Campbell (1998), 405
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