“Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo
“Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo is identified in this painting by the pot of ointment in the lower left of the painting, with which Mary Magdalene anointed Christ’s body. She is also distinguished by the slight glimpse of a red dress beneath a silver-grey cloak.
The landscape in the background appears to mirror the artist’s views of Venice and its lagoon. Mary Magdalene was a Jewish woman who, according to the gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
All four gospels identify her as the first witness to the empty tomb and the first to testify to Jesus’s resurrection. During the Middle Ages, Mary Magdalene was conflated in western tradition with Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus’s feet. This resulted in an inaccurate belief that she was a repentant prostitute or promiscuous woman. During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church used Mary Magdalene as a symbol of penance. Speculations that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife or that she had a love relationship with him are regarded by most as dubious.
Girolamo Savoldo
Girolamo Savoldo was an Italian High Renaissance painter active mostly in Venice. He is noted for his subtle use of color and the use of sharp contrasts between light and dark. His works were primarily religious subjects, and only about 40 paintings and a handful of drawings are known.
Mary Magdalene
- Title: Mary Magdalene
- Artist: Girolamo Savoldo
- Date: 1535 until 1540
- Materials: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: Height: 89.1 cm (35 in); Width: 82.4 cm (32.4 in)
- Museum: The National Gallery, London
Girolamo Savoldo
- Artist: Girolamo Savoldo, also Girolamo da Brescia
- Born: 1480-1485 – Brescia, Lombardy, Italy
- Died: 1548 – Venice
- Nationality: Italian
- Movement: Italian High Renaissance
- Notable Works:
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13th Century Paintings
- “The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Narrative Scenes” by Margarito d’Arezzo – 1264
- “The Virgin and Child” by Master of the Clarisse – 1268
- “Crucifix” by Master of Saint Francis – 1270
14th Century Paintings
- Wilton Diptych – 1395
- “The Annunciation” by Duccio – 1311
- “The Healing of the Man born Blind” by Duccio – 1311
15th Century Paintings
- “Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck – 1434
- “The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello– 1440
- “Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli – 1483
- “Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini– 1501
16th Century Paintings
- “Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
- “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
- “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
- “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
- “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
- “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
- “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
- “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
- “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
- “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
- “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
- “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
- “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575
17th Century Paintings
- “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
- “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
- “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Diego Velázquez – 1618
- “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
- “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
- “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
- “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
- “The Courtyard of a House in Delft” by Pieter de Hooch – 1658
- “Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
- “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670
18th Century Paintings
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
- “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
- “Mr and Mrs Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
- “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
- “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
- “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782
19th Century Paintings
- “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
- “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
- “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
- “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
- “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
- “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
- “Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
- “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
- “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
- “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
- “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
- “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
- “Tiger in a Tropical Storm” by Henri Rousseau – 1891
- “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
- “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898
20th Century Paintings
- “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir – 1904
- “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
- Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by Paul Cézanne – 1905
- “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows – 1912
- “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916
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“The saint who works no miracles isn’t glorified.”
– Greek Proverb
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Photo Credit: 1) Girolamo Savoldo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
