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Mary Magdalene
Moretto da Brescia (Alessandro Bonvicino; Italian, c. 1492/95–1554)
1540–50
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 166 × 47 cm (65 3/8 × 18 1/2 in.); Framed: 181 × 66.1 × 5.1 cm (71 1/4 × 26 × 2 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Goodman
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Mary Magdalene turns to cast a melancholy glance back at the viewer with the gravity and directness typical of Moretto da Brescia’s approach to religious subjects. This painting has been linked to other tall, slender canvases by the artist depicting Saint John the Evangelist, the Samian Sibyl, and King Solomon, in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. These works may have been segments of an altarpiece or, more likely, part of a series with a decorative rather than liturgical function. The artist effectively combined characteristics of Italian painting from different regions: the realism of his native Lombardy, Venetian color and atmosphere, and the monumentality of Roman models.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
