Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy

Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy is a painting by the Italian baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. It is in a private European collection.

Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy
Year1623
Dimensions81 cm (32 in) × 105 cm (41 in)

It is one of many paintings by Gentileschi of the Magdalene but the depiction is unusual for the period. The 2020 exhibition catalogue on Artemisia notes that "Mary Magdalene is more usually shown penitent in a landscape ... [here] she is passionately alive and in the throes of ecstatic rapture."[1] The connection to (the various existing copies of) Caravaggio's Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy has been made. They show more of Mary Magdalene's flesh and shoulder than versions by other artists. Other symbols that demonstrate her repentance - skull, candle, ointment jar - are barely visible, leading art historians to focus on the more sensual feel of the painting.[1]

The painting was virtually unknown until an article of 2011 revealed an old photograph of it. [2][3] It was sold in Paris for 2014 for 865,000 Euros (over a million US Dollars), over 600,000 Euros above the asking prices. It was then record price for works by Gentileschi, that was broken in 2018 with the sale of her Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria.[4]

There is no precise date for the painting; the first half of the 1620s has been suggested. The painting is in a private European collection.[1]

  • Photo found by Gianni Papi on which he based his 2011 attribution

References
  1. Treves, Letizia. (2020). Artemisia. [S.l.]: National Gallery (London). p. 182. ISBN 978-1-85709-656-9. OCLC 1117638110.
  2. "Sotheby's Offers Lost Artemisia Gentileschi Masterpiece". artnet News. 2014-06-10. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  3. Artemisia Gentileschi: Milan, by Gianni Papi, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 153, No. 1305 (December 2011), pp. 846-847
  4. "Artemisia Gentileschi - Mary Magdalene in Ectsasy". Retrieved 2 May 2020.
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