Saint Mary Magdalene
Saint Mary Magdalene
- Artist
- Attributed to Giampietrino
- Artist Dates
- active c. 1495-1540
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Saint Mary Magdalene
- Date
- c. 1530
- Medium
- panel
- Dimensions
- 63.5 x 48.6 cm (25 x 19-1/8 in)
- K Number
- K1230
- Repository
- Howard University Gallery of Art
- Accession Number
- 61.154.P
- Notes
Provenance
Anonymous collection, UK. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955], on 1 September 1939; gift to Howard University Gallery of Art in 1961, Washington, DC, no. 61.154.P.
Catalogue Entry
Attributed to Giampietrino
Saint Mary Magdalene
K1230
Washington, D.C., Howard University, Study Collection (61.154.P), since 1961.(1) Wood. 25 x 19 1/8 in. (63.5 x 48.6 cm.). Abraded throughout except in face. While the proportions of the figure –the unusually long neck, small head, and small hands – are not quite typical of the figures in the generally accepted oeuvre of Giampietrino, K1230 must be by one of the followers of Leonardo, about 1530, most likely Giampietrino,(2) although it shows a similarity also to paintings attributed to Melzi. K1230 should, like K1021 (Fig. 330), be compared with a drawing for the Magdalen by Leonardo.(3) Provenance: English Private Collection.(4) Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1939 –exhibited: Columbia Museum of Art. Columbia, S.C., 1954-61.(5)
References
(1) Catalogue by J. A. Porter, 1961, no. 8, as Giampietrino. (2) K1230 has been attributed to Giampietrino by G. Fiocco, R. Longhi, F. M. Perkins, tentatively, W. E. Suida, and A. Venturi (in ms. opinions). (3) Compare the commentary to K1021, p. 136. (4) Perhaps this is the collection of Mr. Archibald Stirling, Cawder House, Scotland, who is mentioned in 1899 – p. lxii of the catalogue of the 1898 exhibition 'Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy,' Burlington Fine Arts Club, London – as owning a variant of the Giampietrino St. Mary Magdalene included as no. 56 in that exhibition. The latter painting, lent to the exhibition by Mr. Wickham Flower and reproduced on pl. 20 of the catalogue, shows the figure as in K1230 but bedecked with jewels and with a porphyry sarcophagus (later additions?) in front of her. (5) Catalogue by Suida, 1954, p. 39, as Giampietrino.