Interpretation
According to legend, Saint Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute who became one of Jesus’s most devoted followers; after his death, she lived as a hermit in a mountain cave. During the Counter Reformation her penitential role was emphasized, as in this drawing, which depicts the saint adoring a small crucifix. Executed with deft strokes of pen and ink, this exploratory sketch demonstrates the ways in which the leading Italian Baroque painter Guercino exploited economical means for maximum dramatic effect, utilizing a graphic code of devices—zigzagging lines, clustered dots, and parallel hatching—to conjure the essence of female beauty
and rapturous devotion.
and rapturous devotion.
Information
- Title
- Saint Mary Magdalene
- Object Number
- x1948-1266
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink
- Dates
- ca. 1624–25
- Dimensions
- 18.9 x 21 cm (7 7/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
- Credit Line
- Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895
- Culture
- Italian
- Marks/Labels/Seals
- Stamp in black ink, on verso lower left: D.F.P. [in circle] [Lugt 750a]
- Type
- Materials
Parsons & Sons, London; purchased by Dan Fellows Platt (1873–1937) in 1920; bequeathed to Princeton University Art Museum, 1937.
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: p. 109, no. 315 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- David Stone, Guercino, master draftsman: works from North American collections, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museum; Bologna, Italy: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991)., 218
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