Saint Mary Magdalen c.1530
Oil on panel (oak) | 68.7 x 51.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 406108
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Positioned in front of dark-green curtains, the Saint wears a green turban over a transparent veil and a dark-red or purple dress with red hanging sleeves and white undersleeves. She is identified as Mary Magdalen principally by the attribute of the gold covered pot of ointment with which she anointed Christ’s body, as told in the New Testament.
Ambrosius Benson (active c.1519, died 1550) came from Lombardy but worked in Bruges. He was made a master of the Bruges Guild in 1519. He was a successful painter of religious and genre subjects and portraits.
The attribution of this painting to Benson has been universally accepted. The style of this work is consistent with that of his monogrammed paintings, and the shortcomings in the drawing of the figure, the perspective of the pot and in the rendering of textures can be paralleled in other pictures accepted as Benson’s. Several very similar paintings of the Magdalen exist, with the principal variant in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges.
The painting appears in Pyne's illustrated 'Royal Residences' of 1819, hanging in The Queen's Closet (RCIN 922154).Provenance
Probably the picture of Mary Magdalen described in the collection of Henry VIII and Edward VI, certainly in the collection of Charles I: the CR brand is on the reverse. Thought to be the painting described as 'Rosomond wth a cup of poyson in her hand' which was sold for £5 to Jackson and others on 23 October 1651 from Hampton Court on 23 October 1651 (no 145); recovered at the Restoration and listed in the King's Gallery at Hampton Court in 1666 (no 126).
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Creator(s)
Previously attributed to (artist)(nationality)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel (oak)
Measurements
68.7 x 51.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
85.6 x 67.8 x 4.0 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Rosamond Clifford, previously identified as
Sophonisba, previously identified as
Rosamond with a cup of poison, previously entitled