The Magdalen Reading
Encyclopedia
The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th century oil-on-oak
altarpiece
by the early Netherlandish
painter Rogier van der Weyden. Completed some time between 1435 and 1438, it 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. The woman 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 annointed the feet of Jesus with oil and the unnamed "sinner" of . Iconography
of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted. Van der Weyden pays close attention to detail in many passages, in particular the folds and cloth of the woman's dress, the rock crystal
of the rosary beads held by the figure standing over her, and the lushness of the exterior.
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 Magdalen and the kneeling figure with 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. The original altarpiece was a sacra conversazione
, 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 1500s. 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 centimetre.
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 Holland, 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."
as depicted in early Renaissance painting is a composite of various biblical figures. Here, she is based on Mary of Bethany, who is identified as the Magdalen in the Roman Catholic tradition. Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus' feet and "listened to His Word", and is thus seen as a contemplative figure. The counterpoint is Mary's sister Martha
who, representative of the active life, wished that Mary would help her serve. Mary is shown by van der Weyden as youthful, sitting in quiet piety with her head tilted and eyes modestly averted from the viewer. She is absorbed in her reading of a holy book, the covers of which include a chemise of white cloth, a common form of protective binding. Four coloured cloth bookmarks are tied to a gold bar near the top of the spine. According to Lorne Campbell, the manuscript "looks rather like a 13th-century French Bible" and is "clearly a devotional text". It was rare for contemporary portraits to show women reading, and if the model herself could read then she was likely from a noble family.
Van der Weyden often linked form and meaning, and in this fragment the semicircular outline of the Magdalen reinforces her quiet detachment from her surroundings. She is seated on a red cushion and rests her back against a wooden sideboard. By her feet is her usual attribute
of an alabaster
jar; in the Gospels she brought spices to the tomb of Jesus
. The view through the window is of a distant canal, with an archer
atop the garden wall and a figure walking on the other side of the water, whose reflection shows in the water.
Van der Weyden's pose for the Magdalen is close to a number of female religious figures by his master Robert Campin
and his workshop. It closely resembles, in theme and tone, the figure of Saint Barbara
in Campin's Werl Altarpiece
, and also the Virgin in an Annunciation
attributed to Campin in Brussels
. Typically for a van der Weyden, the Magdalen's face has an almost sculpted look, and the elements of her clothes are conveyed in minute detail. She wears a green robe; in medieval art the Magdalen is usually depicted naked or in richly coloured dress, typically red, blue or green, almost never in white. Her robe is tightly pulled below her bust by a blue sash
, while the gold brocade
of her underskirt
is adorned by a jewelled hem. In 2009 THE art critic Charles Darwent observed that the Magdalen's past as a "fallen woman
" is hinted at through the nap
in the fur lining of her dress and in the few strands of hair loose from her veil. Darwent wrote, "Even her fingers, absent-mindedly circled, suggest completeness. In her mix of purity and eroticism, van der Weyden's Magdalen feels whole; but she isn't." In the medieval period fur symbolized female sexuality and was commonly associated with the Magdalen. Medieval historian Philip Crispin explains that artists such as Memling
and Matsys
often portrayed the Magdalen in furs and notes that she "is noticeably dressed in fur-lined garments in The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden".
The level of detail used in portraying the Magdalen has been described by Campbell as "far exceed[ing]" van Eyck
. Her lips are painted with a shades of vermilion
, white and red which are mixed into each other to give a transparent look at the edges. The fur lining of her dress is painted in a range of greys running from almost pure white to pure black. Rogier gave the fur a textured look by painting stripes parallel to the line of the dress and then feathering the paint before it dried. The gold on the cloth is rendered with a variety of impasto
, grid and dots of varying colour and size.
Many of the objects around her are also closely detailed, in particular the wooden floor and nails, the folds of Mary's dress, the costume of the figures in the exterior and Joseph's beads. The effect of falling light is closely studied; Joseph's crystal rosary beads have bright highlights, while subtle delineations of light and shade can be seen in the sideboard's tracery and in the clasps of her book. Mary is absorbed in her reading and seemingly unaware of her surroundings. Van der Weyden has given her a quiet dignity unusual for him; he is generally seen as the more emotional of the master Netherlandish painters of the era, in particular when contrasted with Jan van Eyck
.
Lorne Campbell describes the tiny figure of the woman seen through the window and her reflection in the water as "small miracles of painting", and says that "the attention to detail far exceeds that of Jan van Eyck and the skill of execution is astounding". He notes that these tiny details would have been impossible for a viewer to observe when the altarpiece was in its intended position. Other areas of the panel, however, have been described as dull and uninspired. One critic wrote that the areas of the floor and most of the cupboard behind her seem unfinished and "much too narrow and papery in effect". A number of objects placed on the cupboard are now barely visible save for their bases. The object on the right seated on legs alongside a box is likely a small pitcher
, possibly a reliquary
. A moulding to the left of the cupboard may represent a doorway.
and crosier
making a blessing gesture; a narrow gap with a few wavy vertical lines suggesting a start at the outline of a further kneeling figure; a barefoot bearded figure in a rough robe identified as Saint John the Baptist
; a seated Virgin holding on her lap the Christ-child who leans to the right, looking at a book; and holding the book, a kneeling beardless male identified as John the Evangelist
. The drawing stops at the end of John's robe, at about the point on the London panel where Joseph's walking stick meets John and the Magdalen's robes. This suggests that the Magdalen panel was the first to be cut from the larger work.
At an unknown point before 1811, the original altarpiece was broken into at least three pieces, possibly due to damage, although the Magdalen fragment is in good condition. The black overpaint was likely added after the early 17th century when Netherlandish painting had fallen from favour and was unfashionable. Campbell believes that after the removal of the background detail "it looked sufficiently like a genre piece to hang in a well-known collection of Dutch seventeenth-century paintings". From the size of three surviving panels in relation to the drawing, it is estimated that the original was at least 1 m high by 1.5 m wide; the bishop and Magdalen seem to clearly mark the horizontal extremities, but the extent of the picture above and below the surviving elements and the drawing cannot be judged. Such a size is comparable with smaller altarpieces of the period. The background was overpainted with a thick layer of black/brown pigment until it was cleaned in 1955; it was only after the layer's removal that it was linked to the upper body and head of Joseph from the Lisbon piece. These two works were not recorded in inventory until 1907, when they appear in the collection of Léo Lardus in Suresnes
, France.
The London panel shows much of the clothing of two other figures from the original altarpiece. To the left of the Magdalen is the red robe of what appears to be a kneeling figure. The figure and robe, and less precisely the background, match a kneeling Saint John the Evangelist. Behind the Magdalen is a standing figure in blue and red robes, with linear rosary
beads in one hand and a walking stick in the other. A panel at the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
in Lisbon
shows the head of a figure believed to be the Saint Joseph
; the background and clothes match with those of the figure behind the Magdalen on the London panel.
There is a further small panel in Lisbon of a female head, richly or royally dressed, which first appeared in 1907 with the Joseph panel when it was recorded in the inventory of Leo Nardus at Suresnes
. The figure may represent Saint Catherine of Alexandria
, and from both the angle of her cloth and the fact that the river behind her would be parallel to that in the exterior of the London panel it can be assumed that she was kneeling. In the Stockholm drawing she is omitted, or only traces of her dress shown. The Joseph panel has a sliver of a view through a window to an exterior scene; if the other female is presumed to be kneeling, the trees above the waterway aligns with those in the London panel. Some art historians, including Martin Davies and John Ward, have been slow to allow the Catherine panel as part of the altarpiece, though it is undoubtedly by van der Weyden or a near-contemporary follower. Evidence against this link includes the fact that the moulding of the window to the left of the Gulbenkian female saint is plain, while that next to Saint Joseph is chamfer
ed. Such an inconsistency in a single van der Weyden work is unusual. The panels are of equal thickness (1.3 cm) and of near-identical size; the Saint Catherine panel measures 18.6 centimetre, the Saint Joseph 18.2 centimetre.
Lorne Campbell thinks that though the Catherine head is "obviously less well drawn and less successfully painted than the Magdalen", it "seems likely" that all three fragments came from the same original work; he points out that "about half way up the right edge of this fragment ["Catherine"] is a small triangle of red, outlined by a continuous underdrawn brushstroke ... It is likely that the red is part of the contour of the missing figure of the Baptist". The small piece is on the outermost edge of the panel, and only visible when it was removed from the frame. Ward believes the piece corresponds directly with the folds of John's robes.
The Stockholm drawing contains a narrow blank gap to the right of the bishop with a few indistinct lines that could represent the lower profile of the kneeling figure of Saint Catherine. Although none of the faces in the three surviving panels match any in the drawing, a 1971 reconstruction by art historian John Ward—which combined all of the works into a composition of a central Virgin and Child flanked by six saints—is widely accepted. The Stockholm drawing's original location or history before the 19th century is unknown, except that the verso shows a surviving carving of the Virgin and Child attributed to a Brussels
workshop from about 1440. This carving is also now in Portugal.
as the repentant prostitute of . She then became associated with weeping and reading: Christ's mercy causes the eyes of the sinner to be contrite or tearful. Early Renaissance artists often conveyed this idea by portraying contemplative eyes, associating tears with words, and in turn weeping with reading. Examples can be seen in 16th-century works by Tintoretto
and Titian
which show the Magdalen reading, often with her eyes averted towards her book (and presumably away from a male gaze
), or looking up to the heavens or, sometimes, glancing coyly towards the viewer. Writing in "The Crying Face", Mosche Barasch explains that in van der Weyden's time the gesture of averting or concealing the eyes became a "pictorial formula for crying".
By the medieval period, reading became synonymous with devotion, which involved withdrawal from public view. Van der Weyden's placement of the Magdalen in an interior scene reflects the increasing literacy of domestic or laywomen in the mid-15th century. The increased production of devotional texts showed that noble women of the period routinely read texts such as a psalter
or book of hours
in the privacy of their homes. Whether the Magdalen herself was a reader, by the 17th century she was firmly established as such in the visual arts. Because the Magdalen was present at Christ's death and subsequent resurrection, she was seen as the bearer of news—a witness—and hence directly associated with the text.
The Magdalen imagery further draws on the idea of Christ as the word, represented by a book, with the Magdalen as the reader learning of her own life story in a moment of reflection and repentance. Her devotion to reading reflects her traditional status as the piously repentant harlot, as well as a prophetess or seer. According to legend, the Magdalen lived the last 30 years of her life as a hermit in Sainte-Baume
and is often shown with a book, reading or writing, symbolizing her later years of contemplation and repentance. By the 13th century she acquired the imagery of a once-shamed woman who, clothed in long hair, now hid her nakedness in exile and "borne by angels, floats between heaven and earth".
The Magdalen's ointment jar was common in the lexicon of art in van der Weyden's period. Mary of Bethany may have used a jar when she repented of her sins at Christ's feet in her home; by the Renaissance, the image of the Magdalen was of the woman who bathed Christ's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. She signified the "sacrament of anointing (Chrism
and Unction
)" by pouring precious spikenard
on Christ's feet at his tomb.
. He proposes a c. 1437 date based on similarities to Campin's Werl Altarpiece
.
Because van der Weyden, like most of the early Netherlandish painters
, was not rediscovered until the early 19th century, many of his works were wrongly attributed or dated, and major pieces such as the Berlin Miraflores Altarpiece
continue to emerge. Conversely, when a number of pieces considered either by van der Weyden or assistants under his supervision were cleaned in the mid- to late 20th century, his hand or direct influence was disproved, or in the case of the Magdalen, associated with other images whose attribution had been uncertain.
The Magdalen Reading can first be traced to an 1811 sale of the estate of Cassino, a little-known collector in Haarlem
, when the work was already cut down. The painting is recorded in the inventory of Demoiselles Hoofman, also of Haarlem. After passing to the Nieuwenhuys brothers, who were leading dealers in art of the early Netherlandish period, it moved to the collector Edmond Beaucousin in Paris, whose "small but choice" collection of early Netherlandish paintings was purchased for the National Gallery
, London by Charles Eastlake
in 1860; an acquisition that also included two Robert Campin
portraits and panels by Simon Marmion
(1425–1489). This was during a period of acquisition intended to establish the international prestige of the gallery. Probably before 1811, all the background except the red robe on the left and the alabaster jar and floorboards was overpainted in plain brown, which was not removed until the cleaning begun in 1955. In general the "painted surface is in very good condition", although better in the parts that were not overpainted, and there are a few small losses.
The Magdalen Reading was transferred to a mahogany
panel (West Indian swietenia
) by unknown craftsmen sometime between 1828 and when the National Gallery acquired it in 1860. Campbell states that the transfer was "Certainly after 1828, probably after 1845, and certainly before 1860", the year it was acquired by the National Gallery. Artificial ultramarine
-coloured paint found in the transfer ground indicates that the change of panel took place after 1830. The heads in Lisbon are still on their original oak panels. The Stockholm drawing was discovered in a German inventory c. 1916 and is likely of Swedish origin. It was bequeathed by a Norwegian collector, Christian Langaad, to the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts in 1918.
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
by the early Netherlandish
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
painter Rogier van der Weyden. Completed some time between 1435 and 1438, it has been in the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, 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. The woman is identifiable as the Magdalen
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
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 annointed the feet of Jesus with oil and the unnamed "sinner" of . Iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted. Van der Weyden pays close attention to detail in many passages, in particular the folds and cloth of the woman's dress, the rock crystal
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
of the rosary beads held by the figure standing over her, and the lushness of the exterior.
The background of the painting had been overpainted
Overpainting
Overpainting can mean the final layers of paint, over some type of underpainting, in a system of working in layers. It can also mean later paint added by restorers, or an artist or dealer wishing to "improve" or update an old image—a very common practice in the past. The underpainting gives a...
with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956 revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalen and the kneeling figure with 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
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian is a museum in Lisbon, Portugal, containing a collection of ancient, and some modern art...
, Lisbon, which shows the head of Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
, while another Lisbon fragment, showing what is believed to be Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...
, is thought to be from the same larger work. The original altarpiece was a sacra conversazione
Sacra conversazione
In art, a sacra conversazione or sacred conversation is a depiction of the Virgin and Child amidst a group of saints in a relatively informal grouping, as opposed to the more rigid and hierarchical compositions of earlier periods...
, 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 1500s. 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 centimetre.
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 Holland, the panel was purchased by the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, 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."
Description
Mary MagdalenMary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
as depicted in early Renaissance painting is a composite of various biblical figures. Here, she is based on Mary of Bethany, who is identified as the Magdalen in the Roman Catholic tradition. Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus' feet and "listened to His Word", and is thus seen as a contemplative figure. The counterpoint is Mary's sister Martha
Martha
Martha of Bethany is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem...
who, representative of the active life, wished that Mary would help her serve. Mary is shown by van der Weyden as youthful, sitting in quiet piety with her head tilted and eyes modestly averted from the viewer. She is absorbed in her reading of a holy book, the covers of which include a chemise of white cloth, a common form of protective binding. Four coloured cloth bookmarks are tied to a gold bar near the top of the spine. According to Lorne Campbell, the manuscript "looks rather like a 13th-century French Bible" and is "clearly a devotional text". It was rare for contemporary portraits to show women reading, and if the model herself could read then she was likely from a noble family.
Van der Weyden often linked form and meaning, and in this fragment the semicircular outline of the Magdalen reinforces her quiet detachment from her surroundings. She is seated on a red cushion and rests her back against a wooden sideboard. By her feet is her usual attribute
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
of an alabaster
Alabaster
Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the latter is the alabaster of the ancients...
jar; in the Gospels she brought spices to the tomb of Jesus
Tomb of Jesus
Several places have been proposed as the tomb of Jesus, the place where Jesus Christ was buried:*Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, accepted by many Christians and scholars as built on ground on which Jesus was crucified and buried...
. The view through the window is of a distant canal, with an archer
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
atop the garden wall and a figure walking on the other side of the water, whose reflection shows in the water.
Van der Weyden's pose for the Magdalen is close to a number of female religious figures by his master Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
and his workshop. It closely resembles, in theme and tone, the figure of Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara, , Feast Day December 4, known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian saint and martyr....
in Campin's Werl Altarpiece
The Werl Triptych
The Werl Triptych is an triptych altarpiece completed in Cologne in 1438, of which the center panel is now lost. It is long attributed to the Master of Flémalle, now generally believed to have been Robert Campin, although this identity is not universally accepted...
, and also the Virgin in an Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...
attributed to Campin in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. Typically for a van der Weyden, the Magdalen's face has an almost sculpted look, and the elements of her clothes are conveyed in minute detail. She wears a green robe; in medieval art the Magdalen is usually depicted naked or in richly coloured dress, typically red, blue or green, almost never in white. Her robe is tightly pulled below her bust by a blue sash
Sash
A sash is a cloth belt used to hold a robe together, and is usually tied about the waist. The Japanese equivalent of a sash, obi, serves to hold a kimono or yukata together. Decorative sashes may pass from the shoulder to the hip rather than around the waist...
, while the gold brocade
Brocade
Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli," comes from Italian broccato meaning "embossed cloth," originally past participle of the verb broccare...
of her underskirt
Petticoat
A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing for women; specifically an undergarment to be worn under a skirt or a dress. The petticoat is a separate garment hanging from the waist ....
is adorned by a jewelled hem. In 2009 THE art critic Charles Darwent observed that the Magdalen's past as a "fallen woman
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
" is hinted at through the nap
Nap (textile)
Primarily, nap is the raised surface on certain kinds of cloth, such as velvet. Nap can refer additionally to other surfaces that look like the surface of a napped cloth, such as the surface of a felt or beaver hat....
in the fur lining of her dress and in the few strands of hair loose from her veil. Darwent wrote, "Even her fingers, absent-mindedly circled, suggest completeness. In her mix of purity and eroticism, van der Weyden's Magdalen feels whole; but she isn't." In the medieval period fur symbolized female sexuality and was commonly associated with the Magdalen. Medieval historian Philip Crispin explains that artists such as Memling
Hans Memling
Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...
and Matsys
Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter...
often portrayed the Magdalen in furs and notes that she "is noticeably dressed in fur-lined garments in The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden".
The level of detail used in portraying the Magdalen has been described by Campbell as "far exceed[ing]" van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
. Her lips are painted with a shades of vermilion
Vermilion
Vermilion is an opaque orangish red pigment, similar to scarlet. As a naturally occurring mineral pigment, it is known as cinnabar, and was in use around the world before the Common Era began. Most naturally produced vermilion comes from cinnabar mined in China, and vermilion is nowadays commonly...
, white and red which are mixed into each other to give a transparent look at the edges. The fur lining of her dress is painted in a range of greys running from almost pure white to pure black. Rogier gave the fur a textured look by painting stripes parallel to the line of the dress and then feathering the paint before it dried. The gold on the cloth is rendered with a variety of impasto
Impasto
In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...
, grid and dots of varying colour and size.
Many of the objects around her are also closely detailed, in particular the wooden floor and nails, the folds of Mary's dress, the costume of the figures in the exterior and Joseph's beads. The effect of falling light is closely studied; Joseph's crystal rosary beads have bright highlights, while subtle delineations of light and shade can be seen in the sideboard's tracery and in the clasps of her book. Mary is absorbed in her reading and seemingly unaware of her surroundings. Van der Weyden has given her a quiet dignity unusual for him; he is generally seen as the more emotional of the master Netherlandish painters of the era, in particular when contrasted with Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
.
Lorne Campbell describes the tiny figure of the woman seen through the window and her reflection in the water as "small miracles of painting", and says that "the attention to detail far exceeds that of Jan van Eyck and the skill of execution is astounding". He notes that these tiny details would have been impossible for a viewer to observe when the altarpiece was in its intended position. Other areas of the panel, however, have been described as dull and uninspired. One critic wrote that the areas of the floor and most of the cupboard behind her seem unfinished and "much too narrow and papery in effect". A number of objects placed on the cupboard are now barely visible save for their bases. The object on the right seated on legs alongside a box is likely a small pitcher
Pitcher (container)
A pitcher is a container with a spout used for storing and pouring contents which are liquid in form. Generally a pitcher also has a handle, which makes pouring easier.A ewer is a vase-shaped pitcher, often decorated, with a base and a flaring spout...
, possibly a reliquary
Reliquary
A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures...
. A moulding to the left of the cupboard may represent a doorway.
Altarpiece fragment
Virgin and Child with Saints, a drawing in Stockholm's Nationalmuseum, is believed to be a study of a portion of the original altarpiece by a follower of van der Weyden, who possibly may have been the Master of the Koberger Ründblatter. The drawing has a loosely sketched background and shows, from left to right: an unidentified bishop saint with mitreMitre
The mitre , also spelled miter, is a type of headwear now known as the traditional, ceremonial head-dress of bishops and certain abbots in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the Anglican Communion, some Lutheran churches, and also bishops and certain other clergy in the Eastern Orthodox...
and crosier
Crosier
A crosier is the stylized staff of office carried by high-ranking Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran and Pentecostal prelates...
making a blessing gesture; a narrow gap with a few wavy vertical lines suggesting a start at the outline of a further kneeling figure; a barefoot bearded figure in a rough robe identified as Saint John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
; a seated Virgin holding on her lap the Christ-child who leans to the right, looking at a book; and holding the book, a kneeling beardless male identified as John the Evangelist
John the Evangelist
Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...
. The drawing stops at the end of John's robe, at about the point on the London panel where Joseph's walking stick meets John and the Magdalen's robes. This suggests that the Magdalen panel was the first to be cut from the larger work.
At an unknown point before 1811, the original altarpiece was broken into at least three pieces, possibly due to damage, although the Magdalen fragment is in good condition. The black overpaint was likely added after the early 17th century when Netherlandish painting had fallen from favour and was unfashionable. Campbell believes that after the removal of the background detail "it looked sufficiently like a genre piece to hang in a well-known collection of Dutch seventeenth-century paintings". From the size of three surviving panels in relation to the drawing, it is estimated that the original was at least 1 m high by 1.5 m wide; the bishop and Magdalen seem to clearly mark the horizontal extremities, but the extent of the picture above and below the surviving elements and the drawing cannot be judged. Such a size is comparable with smaller altarpieces of the period. The background was overpainted with a thick layer of black/brown pigment until it was cleaned in 1955; it was only after the layer's removal that it was linked to the upper body and head of Joseph from the Lisbon piece. These two works were not recorded in inventory until 1907, when they appear in the collection of Léo Lardus in Suresnes
Suresnes
Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...
, France.
The London panel shows much of the clothing of two other figures from the original altarpiece. To the left of the Magdalen is the red robe of what appears to be a kneeling figure. The figure and robe, and less precisely the background, match a kneeling Saint John the Evangelist. Behind the Magdalen is a standing figure in blue and red robes, with linear rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
beads in one hand and a walking stick in the other. A panel at the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian is a museum in Lisbon, Portugal, containing a collection of ancient, and some modern art...
in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
shows the head of a figure believed to be the Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
; the background and clothes match with those of the figure behind the Magdalen on the London panel.
There is a further small panel in Lisbon of a female head, richly or royally dressed, which first appeared in 1907 with the Joseph panel when it was recorded in the inventory of Leo Nardus at Suresnes
Suresnes
Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...
. The figure may represent Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...
, and from both the angle of her cloth and the fact that the river behind her would be parallel to that in the exterior of the London panel it can be assumed that she was kneeling. In the Stockholm drawing she is omitted, or only traces of her dress shown. The Joseph panel has a sliver of a view through a window to an exterior scene; if the other female is presumed to be kneeling, the trees above the waterway aligns with those in the London panel. Some art historians, including Martin Davies and John Ward, have been slow to allow the Catherine panel as part of the altarpiece, though it is undoubtedly by van der Weyden or a near-contemporary follower. Evidence against this link includes the fact that the moulding of the window to the left of the Gulbenkian female saint is plain, while that next to Saint Joseph is chamfer
Chamfer
A chamfer is a beveled edge connecting two surfaces. If the surfaces are at right angles, the chamfer will typically be symmetrical at 45 degrees. A fillet is the rounding off of an interior corner. A rounding of an exterior corner is called a "round" or a "radius"."Chamfer" is a term commonly...
ed. Such an inconsistency in a single van der Weyden work is unusual. The panels are of equal thickness (1.3 cm) and of near-identical size; the Saint Catherine panel measures 18.6 centimetre, the Saint Joseph 18.2 centimetre.
Lorne Campbell thinks that though the Catherine head is "obviously less well drawn and less successfully painted than the Magdalen", it "seems likely" that all three fragments came from the same original work; he points out that "about half way up the right edge of this fragment ["Catherine"] is a small triangle of red, outlined by a continuous underdrawn brushstroke ... It is likely that the red is part of the contour of the missing figure of the Baptist". The small piece is on the outermost edge of the panel, and only visible when it was removed from the frame. Ward believes the piece corresponds directly with the folds of John's robes.
The Stockholm drawing contains a narrow blank gap to the right of the bishop with a few indistinct lines that could represent the lower profile of the kneeling figure of Saint Catherine. Although none of the faces in the three surviving panels match any in the drawing, a 1971 reconstruction by art historian John Ward—which combined all of the works into a composition of a central Virgin and Child flanked by six saints—is widely accepted. The Stockholm drawing's original location or history before the 19th century is unknown, except that the verso shows a surviving carving of the Virgin and Child attributed to a Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
workshop from about 1440. This carving is also now in Portugal.
Iconography
Van der Weyden's depiction of the Magdalen is based on Mary of Bethany, identified by the time of Pope Gregory IPope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...
as the repentant prostitute of . She then became associated with weeping and reading: Christ's mercy causes the eyes of the sinner to be contrite or tearful. Early Renaissance artists often conveyed this idea by portraying contemplative eyes, associating tears with words, and in turn weeping with reading. Examples can be seen in 16th-century works by Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
and Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
which show the Magdalen reading, often with her eyes averted towards her book (and presumably away from a male gaze
Gaze
Gaze is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject loses some sense of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object...
), or looking up to the heavens or, sometimes, glancing coyly towards the viewer. Writing in "The Crying Face", Mosche Barasch explains that in van der Weyden's time the gesture of averting or concealing the eyes became a "pictorial formula for crying".
By the medieval period, reading became synonymous with devotion, which involved withdrawal from public view. Van der Weyden's placement of the Magdalen in an interior scene reflects the increasing literacy of domestic or laywomen in the mid-15th century. The increased production of devotional texts showed that noble women of the period routinely read texts such as a psalter
Psalter
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...
or book of hours
Book of Hours
The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...
in the privacy of their homes. Whether the Magdalen herself was a reader, by the 17th century she was firmly established as such in the visual arts. Because the Magdalen was present at Christ's death and subsequent resurrection, she was seen as the bearer of news—a witness—and hence directly associated with the text.
Sainte-Baume
The Sainte-Baume is a mountain ridge spreading between the départements of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var in southern France...
and is often shown with a book, reading or writing, symbolizing her later years of contemplation and repentance. By the 13th century she acquired the imagery of a once-shamed woman who, clothed in long hair, now hid her nakedness in exile and "borne by angels, floats between heaven and earth".
The Magdalen's ointment jar was common in the lexicon of art in van der Weyden's period. Mary of Bethany may have used a jar when she repented of her sins at Christ's feet in her home; by the Renaissance, the image of the Magdalen was of the woman who bathed Christ's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. She signified the "sacrament of anointing (Chrism
Chrism
Chrism , also called "Myrrh" , Holy anointing oil, or "Consecrated Oil", is a consecrated oil used in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, in the Assyrian Church of the East, and in Old-Catholic churches, as well as Anglican churches in the administration...
and Unction
Anointing
To anoint is to pour or smear with perfumed oil, milk, water, melted butter or other substances, a process employed ritually by many religions. People and things are anointed to symbolize the introduction of a sacramental or divine influence, a holy emanation, spirit, power or God...
)" by pouring precious spikenard
Spikenard
Spikenard is a flowering plant of the Valerian family that grows in the Himalayas of China, also found growing in the northern region of India and Nepal. The plant grows to about 1 m in height and has pink, bell-shaped flowers...
on Christ's feet at his tomb.
Dating and provenance
The altarpiece's date is uncertain but believed to be between 1435 and 1438. Van der Weyden was made painter to the city of Brussels in 1435, and it is believed to have been painted after this appointment. The National Gallery gives "before 1438". Art historian John Ward notes that the altarpiece was one of van der Weyden's first masterpieces, created early in his career when he was still heavily influenced by Robert CampinRobert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
. He proposes a c. 1437 date based on similarities to Campin's Werl Altarpiece
The Werl Triptych
The Werl Triptych is an triptych altarpiece completed in Cologne in 1438, of which the center panel is now lost. It is long attributed to the Master of Flémalle, now generally believed to have been Robert Campin, although this identity is not universally accepted...
.
Because van der Weyden, like most of the early Netherlandish painters
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...
, was not rediscovered until the early 19th century, many of his works were wrongly attributed or dated, and major pieces such as the Berlin Miraflores Altarpiece
Miraflores Altarpiece
The Miraflores Altarpiece is a c. 1442-5 oil-on-oak wood panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin since 1850...
continue to emerge. Conversely, when a number of pieces considered either by van der Weyden or assistants under his supervision were cleaned in the mid- to late 20th century, his hand or direct influence was disproved, or in the case of the Magdalen, associated with other images whose attribution had been uncertain.
The Magdalen Reading can first be traced to an 1811 sale of the estate of Cassino, a little-known collector in Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, when the work was already cut down. The painting is recorded in the inventory of Demoiselles Hoofman, also of Haarlem. After passing to the Nieuwenhuys brothers, who were leading dealers in art of the early Netherlandish period, it moved to the collector Edmond Beaucousin in Paris, whose "small but choice" collection of early Netherlandish paintings was purchased for the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, London by Charles Eastlake
Charles Eastlake
Charles Locke Eastlake was a British architect and furniture designer. Trained by the architect Philip Hardwick , he popularised William Morris's notions of decorative arts in the Arts and Crafts style, becoming one of the principal exponents of the revived Early English or Modern Gothic style...
in 1860; an acquisition that also included two Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
portraits and panels by Simon Marmion
Simon Marmion
Simon Marmion was a French or Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts...
(1425–1489). This was during a period of acquisition intended to establish the international prestige of the gallery. Probably before 1811, all the background except the red robe on the left and the alabaster jar and floorboards was overpainted in plain brown, which was not removed until the cleaning begun in 1955. In general the "painted surface is in very good condition", although better in the parts that were not overpainted, and there are a few small losses.
The Magdalen Reading was transferred to a mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
panel (West Indian swietenia
Swietenia
Swietenia is a genus of trees in the chinaberry family, Meliaceae. It occurs natively in the Neotropics, from southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America south to Bolivia...
) by unknown craftsmen sometime between 1828 and when the National Gallery acquired it in 1860. Campbell states that the transfer was "Certainly after 1828, probably after 1845, and certainly before 1860", the year it was acquired by the National Gallery. Artificial ultramarine
Ultramarine
Ultramarine is a blue pigment consisting primarily of a double silicate of aluminium and sodium with some sulfides or sulfates, and occurring in nature as a proximate component of lapis lazuli...
-coloured paint found in the transfer ground indicates that the change of panel took place after 1830. The heads in Lisbon are still on their original oak panels. The Stockholm drawing was discovered in a German inventory c. 1916 and is likely of Swedish origin. It was bequeathed by a Norwegian collector, Christian Langaad, to the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts in 1918.
Further reading
- Campbell, Lorne. "The Materials and Technique of Five Paintings by Rogier van der Weyden and his Workshop". London: National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 18, 1997. 68–86
- White, R. "Medium Analysis of Campin Group Paintings in the National Gallery" in Foister, Susan; Nash, Susie (eds). Robert Campin: New Directions in Scholarship. Antwerp: Turnhout, 1996. 71–76 ISBN 978-2-503-50500-8
External links
- Catalogue entry at the National GalleryNational galleryThe National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
- Other paintings on permanent display in room 56 of the National Gallery