The Penitent Magdalen

The Penitent Magdalen

SK-A-103

De boetvaardige Maria Magdalena, handenwringend en met de ogen ten hemel geslagen. Rechts van de heilige een engel met de zalfpot.

inscription, initial, bottom centre: ‘[J]’

painter: Anthony van Dyck

c. 1620

oil on canvas

• support: height 169.5 cm x width 149.5 cm
• outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame)

• nationalization 1795 1798-09
• nationalization 1795 2015-01-30
• interne vervaardiging 1798-09
• interne vervaardiging 2015-01-30

Public domain

…; ? acquired by Willem IV, stadholder of The Netherlands;{As Willem V was only nine when it is first recorded there in 1757, it seems likely that it was acquired by his father, or earlier.} in the Cabinet near the Ballroom in Paleis Het Loo (‘55 Een magdalena boven de schoorsteen 5 v. 8 d. high. 5 v. 4 d. wide [178.2 x 149 cm]’), estate inventory, 1757;{See S.W.A. Drossaers and T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, _Inventarissen van de inboedels in de verblijven van de Oranjes en daarmee gelijk te stellen stukken 1567-1795_, 3 vols., The Hague 1974-76, II, 1974, p. 639 and p. 641, no. 55. None of the large pictures in the Cabinet were given attributions. Indeed, the style of the _Penitent Magdalen_ was very different from the correctly attributed SK-A-102, no. 20 in the nearby Ballroom. It is not known whether the picture was acquired as by Van Dyck and the attribution had been forgotten, or whether it was bought with a different ascription. Most likely the former was the case, as the attribution was accurately given in 1800, see below. If the identification is correct, it would mean that about 8.7 cm has been lost to the height and nearly 18 cm has been lost to the width; the losses can be situated at the bottom and left edges, as those edges do not have cusping and the painted surface there has been used as the tacking edge.} his son Willem V, until his flight to England, 1795; first recorded in the museum, 1800{P.J.J. van Thiel, ‘De inrichting van de Nationale Konst-Gallery in het openingsjaar 1800’, _Oud Holland_ 95 (1981), pp. 170-227, esp. p. 220, no. 220. E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, _De Nationale Konst-Gallery en Het Koninklijk Museum_, Amsterdam 1909, pp. 63, 213.}

• Documentatiemap Schilderijen.
• Francoise Bardon, 'Le thème de la Madeline penitente au XVIIème siècle en France', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968), p. 281, plaat 76-6
• J. Smith, A cat. raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish and French painters, dl. 3, Londen 1831, cat.nr. 422?
• P.J.J. van Thiel, 'Nationale Konst-Galery 1800', Oud Holland 95 (1981), 219, nr. 220 met afb.

To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:

https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/20027776