Caravaggio (1571-1610)
Maddalena penitente (Penitent Magdalene)
1597
Oil on canvas, 122.5 x 98.5 cm
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Roma
Portrayed in an unadorned environment and sitting on a low chair, as if crushed by the shot from above, with a single ray of light cutting transversally across the canvas, a girl with a pale complexion and long auburn hair (the same model as the Madonna in “Rest during the flight into Egypt” FC 241), her hands gently placed in her lap and her face turned downwards, she cries heartbroken and a single clear tear slips from her half-closed right eye. The painting dates back to Caravaggio‘s first Roman activity (1597) and depicts the Sinner who has just renounced her past worldly life, abandoning a string of pearls and jewels on the ground together with the jar of ointment, her characteristic attribute of hers. This is a pivotal work in the artist’s poetics. The light tones are typical of the painter’s youthful phase, but the oblique blade of light anticipates the dramatizations of the mature and dark phase, which will influence all subsequent European painting. As for “Rest” and “Good Fortune” (donated to Louis XIV by the Pamphilj and now in the Louvre), the Vittrice provenance was confirmed and the acquisition by Donna Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj in 1650 was finally established. (GDP)