This Penitent Magdalen is one of the most important works by Murillo to be discovered in recent years. Murillo signed rather few of his works during his lifetime and most of those that are signed were painted during the early stages of his career, before he became Seville’s most famous painter.

The iconographic theme of the penitent Magdalen was a key element of Catholic devotion during the Counter Reformation period that commenced with the Council of Trent in 1563. Representations of penitent saints were extremely common throughout Europe, but especially so in Spain and Italy. Mary Magdalen symbolises a person who, after a period of debauchery and sin, repents and takes refuge in religion, pursuing, above all, a life of prayer and penitence. The Magdalen was traditionally believed to be a beautiful woman who practiced prostitution until the moment that she met Christ and was redeemed. Later, she withdrew from the world, mortifying her flesh to repent of her sins. During the baroque period the Church used the symbolism of the Magdalen in order to exhort the faithful to repent and recognize their sins while offering them the hope of salvation through penitence and spiritual purification.

The theme of the penitent Magdalen was favoured by Murillo throughout his entire career. This Penitent Magdalen was not painted as early in Murillo’s career (dates between 1638 and 1640 have been proposed) as has been suggested. (3) At that time the artist was still experimenting and his style was as yet unformed while he remained under the influence of Juan de Castillo, his master. Professor Valdeieso has proposed that the painting should be dated some ten years later; the painting should rather be dated around 1650, when the artist was beginning to assert his own individual character in harmony with the traditions of Sevillian painting. Murillo began to use chiaroscuro during this period in order to endow his characters with a sense of intense expression and so that he might also heighten the dramatic quality of the composition and imbue it with a spiritual sense of religious purity. There are a number of other penitent saints that date from this period, all equally dramatic, particularly in their body language and especially in their facial expressions. These include the Saint Francis in Antwerp cathedral as well as another version of the same saint in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville. A similar sense of drama can be seen in a Saint Jerome in the Museo del Prado in Madrid where the kneeling saint is intensely absorbed in the act of penitence.

Murillo’s works executed c. 1650 are tenebrous and also show a strong use of chiaroscuro. Thus, he experimented with a Sevillian form of Caravaggism, which he probably derived from knowledge of Jusepe Ribera. At the same time the intensity of expression and devotion evident in these compositions was almost certainly due to knowledge of early Guido Reni. Several works by Reni once hung in Seville cathedral and his engravings were widely circulated. The characterisation of the head of the Magdalen in particular in this Penitent Magdalen owes much to Reni. (4)

The dramatic sense of expression that Murillo utilised between 1650 and 1655 gave way to sweeter or softer, almost vaporous figures in later years. It is enough to compare this Magdalen with The Magdalen in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne which was painted around 1670. The Cologne Magdalen shows Murillo’s tendency to progressively sweeten and beautify his models, the result of a move towards a more open-minded doctrine within the Spanish Catholic Church. Inevitably this doctrinal tendency inspired Murillo to produce compositions with a softer, more delicate slant than his early Counter Reformation pictures.

This Penitent Magdalen should be compared to four paintings by Murillo executed during the period 1648-55 on the theme of the Magdalen. The earliest version is in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and bears many distinct similarities to the Penitent Magdalen. (5) There is a similar depth of chiaroscuro and a raking light source from the upper left spotlighting the saint and highlighting the open book. The saint looks to the left in the same way with hands clasped, and mouth open with eyes ecstatically rolled back in a Reni-like way. A slightly later example which may be dated around 1655 is the version in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. (6) Here the saint is shown full length kneeling rather than seated. Her shoulders are bared and she holds her robe up to cover her breasts. This is a more progressive image than our Magdalen where, in greater harmony with the restrictions of the Counter Reformation, the saint is shown fully clothed. Another version, also dating c.1655, was formerly in the church of Saint George in New York and is now in a Madrid private collection. (7) The Penitent Magdalen in the San Diego Museum of Art is the fourth version dating from this period and is in many ways similar to the Dublin version except that the saint has been rotated to face to the right and the lighting is much more suffused so that not only is the physiognomy and bodice softer, but the drapery folds have lost their crisp Reni-like character and are no longer picked out in highlighting. (8)

In the Virginia Museum of Art, Richmond, there is yet another painting on the theme of the Magdalen which also dates from the same period. This version does not show the Magdalen as a penitent but instead shows her at the moment of her salvation as a beautiful woman who has decided to renounce her sinful life and follow Christ. (9) Elegantly dressed, the Magdalen casts some jewellery and a ribbon, symbolising her worldly possessions, upon a tasselled cushion on the floor. She is a handsome figure shown in the first moments of her repentance as she makes the decision to abandon her sinful life and convert to Christianity. All these versions show that there was a considerable demand for iconographic representations of the Magdalen in seventeenth century Seville.

Finally a further painting worthy of comparison is the Saint Francis in Ecstasy which was formerly with The Matthiesen Gallery and which is now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection (see the illustration after the Introduction in this catalogue). This painting has also been dated to the period 1650-55 by William Jordan ‘on the basis of its dramatic light and strong chiaroscuro……’ (10)

It is worth remarking that this Penitent Magdalen is the only version from the period that shows the saint outdoors, surrounded by rocks and seemingly at the foot of a gully with the light source filtering from high above, upper left. Rocks and shadowy shrubs make up the Caravaggesque right background. The saint kneels in front of a substantial slab of rock on which are placed a book, a crucifix and her pot of ointment with which she anointed Christ’s feet. A skull or memento mori signifying melancholy but in this instance, in conjunction with the crucifix, indicating a contemplation of the transience of life on earth and the rewards of the life eternal is also present. The Magdalen appears covered with a white shift, tied at the waist with a cord, while a mauve mantle envelops her entire body. Her facial expression, eyes upturned towards heaven, translates into a profound plea for the forgiveness of her sins. Her contemplative, praying posture is indicative of her profound state of repentant piety. As previously remarked, this early Magdalen figure by Murillo differs from later versions and also from Flemish and, more particularly, Italian representations, in its sense of modesty. There is no naked flesh except for the forearms. Reni for instance was to make his Magdalens dazzling figures of seduction while even Murillo in his Dublin picture radically increases the amount of flesh as a distraction to the viewer, perhaps at the special request of the client. As the impact of Counter Reformation mores receded so Murillo carefully adapted his Magdalens from a purely spiritual penitent figure, to a beguiling female whose very body alludes to her past activity. This Penitent Magdalen is among the most restrained in its sexuality, a fact probably explained by the power of the Seville Inquisition which at this time still strictly monitored the moral content of paintings.

There is an engraving of this painting by Raphael Morghen dated 1801, and this again testifies to the popularity Murillo enjoyed in the nineteenth century.

1) Presumed to be the London landscape painter who exhibited from 1848 – 1849. As stated in S. Stratton-Pruitt and W. Jordan Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1619-1682): Paintings from American Collections, 2002, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum and Los Angeles. It is not clear what the source for this is as in C. B. Curtis, Velazquez and Murillo. A description and historical catalogue of the works, New York 1883, the painting is not listed as being in the collection of Robert Westall.
2) C. B. Curtis, Velazquez and Murillo. A description and historical catalogue of the works, New York 1883, lists a number of engravings taken from the R. Morghen, 1801, proving that this painting was a very popular and well-known image.
3) Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, however, in the forthcoming Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1619-1682): Paintings from American Collections catalogue (chapter 1, p.8) dates the picture to ‘….just before 1640, his training by Juan del Castillo is still evident, but the predominantly brown tonalities indicate his awakening interest in a more naturalistic manner, It is interesting to note, in the light of the focus of this exhibition, that this Mary Magdalen was on view in the United States in 1908, even earlier than the two paintings of the same subject included in Murillo in America (cat.nos.4 and 5).
4) Compare Reni’s female heads before 1625. For instance The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of 1606 (Albenga, Diocesan Museum), the kneeling figure in the 1611 Massacre of the Innocents (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), or the celebrated 1631-32 Magdalen (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica).

5) D. Angulo, Murillo, Madrid 1981, II, no. 359 and III, pl. 67.
6) Angulo 1981, II, no. 357 and III, pl. 68.
7) Angulo 1981, II, no. 360 and III, pl. 69.
8) Angulo 1981, II, no. 362 and III, pl. 70.
9) Angulo 1981, II, no. 361 and III, pl. 93. This rather startled pose with the Magdalen looking left across her right shoulder echoes a slightly later example formerly in the Bourdet collection, Le Havre. This latter painting is dated by Angulo to 1660 but was previously dated by Mayer to 1650-55.
10) Ms. opinion, 12 September 1989. Jordan compared the Saint Francis to Saint Anthony’s Vision of the Christ Child in the Birmingham City Art Gallery as well as to several of the paintings noted in the text above. Though close in date the slightly softer handling in this Saint Francis with its softer, more sensuous modeling and long smooth brush strokes probably means that it post dates The Penitent Magdalen by a few years.