| Martha and Mary Magdalene | |
|---|---|
| Italian: Marta e Maddalena | |
 | |
| Artist | Caravaggio |
| Year | c. 1598 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 100 cm× 134.5 cm(39 in× 53.0 in) |
| Location | Detroit Institute of Arts |
Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It is in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Alternate titles include Martha Reproving Mary, The Conversion of the Magdalene, and the Alzaga Caravaggio.
Caravaggio's Martha and Mary is dated to 1598–99, when he was in the entourage of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. Little is known of its history between those years and 25 June 1971, when its owners attempted to sell it at Christie's in London (lot 21). It remained unsold at 130,000 guineas, despite the confidence of the restorer Juan Corradini of Buenos Aires. Later converts were Benedict Nicolson and Mina Gregori (as late as January 1974). Today it is generally considered an autograph work. [1] It was acquired by the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1973.
It is thought that the painting was originally in the collection of Caravaggio's patron Ottavio Costa. His will of 6 August 1606, contains a painting by this description and states that Riggerio Tritonio, secretary of Cardinal Montalto, is to choose between the Martha and Mary and a Saint Francis; the painting not selected was to go to Costa's friend and colleague Giovanni Enriquez de Herrera. Since the Saint Francis later appears in the inventory of Tritinio, it has been assumed that the Martha and Mary passed to Herrera, probably in late 1606. [2]
Giovanni Enriquez de Herrera died on 1 March 1610, without a will, thus leaving his four sons to decide on the fate of his possessions. It has been speculated that it remained in Rome until the 1620s, but the only firm evidence for its provenance after the Herrera family is a seal and inscriptions on the back of the original canvas with the names Niccolò Panzani, Emilia Panzani and Anna E. Panzani. This family has not been traced. [2]
Since its rediscovery, its influence has become apparent, most notably in the number of copies, a now lost work by Carlo Saraceni and a well known version by Orazio Gentileschi, today in Munich. [1]
The painting shows the sisters Martha and Mary from the New Testament. Martha is in the act of converting Mary from her life of pleasure to the life of virtue in Christ. Martha, her face shadowed, leans forward, passionately arguing with Mary, who twirls an orange blossom between her fingers as she holds a mirror, symbolising the vanity she is about to give up. The power of the image lies in Mary's face, caught at the moment when conversion begins.
Martha and Mary was painted while Caravaggio was living in the palazzo of his patron, Cardinal Del Monte. His paintings for Del Monte fall into two groups: the secular genre pieces such as The Musicians , The Lute Player , and Bacchus – all featuring boys and youths in somewhat claustrophobic interior scenes – and religious images such as Rest on the Flight into Egypt and Ecstasy of Saint Francis . Among the religious paintings was a group of four works featuring the same two female models, together or singly. The models were two well-known courtesans who frequented the palazzi of Del Monte and other wealthy and powerful art patrons, and their names were Anna Bianchini and Fillide Melandroni. Anna Bianchini appeared first as a solitary Mary Magdalene in the Penitent Magdalene of about 1597. Fillide Melandroni appeared in a secular Portrait of a Courtesan done the same year for Del Monte's friend and fellow art-lover, the banker Vincenzo Giustiniani. In 1598 Caravaggio painted Fillide again as Saint Catherine , capturing a beauty full of intelligence and spirit. In Martha and Mary the two are shown together, Fillide perfectly fitted to the role of Mary, Anna to the mousier but insistent presence as Martha.
A finely grained cream-brown table running in front of the sisters displays three objects, of which a Venetian mirror is the most obvious. It reflects the Magdalen's hand and a rectangular window, to which reflection her middle finger points. The other two objects are an ivory comb and a dish with a sponge. The type of dish was called a sponzarol by the Venetians and, in this case, is made of alabaster. [3]
Mary wears red, the colour of the Magdalen, and a dress very similar to one Caravaggio employs in his Portrait of a Courtesan (1597) and Saint Catherine (1598), with embroidery on the blouse, similar to what we see in his Penitent Magdalen . [3]
The writings of the Church Fathers (starting with Origen) established Martha and Mary as representative of the active versus the contemplative aspects of Christian faith. This distinction was exemplified in art like Bernardino Luini's Martha and Mary, once in the Barberini Collection in Rome, and attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Caravaggio would certainly have known the painting. [3]
The painting was cleaned and investigated by the scientists at the Detroit Institute of Arts. [4] The pigment analysis revealed the usual pigments of the Baroque period such as lead white, red and yellow ochre and azurite. [5]
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life, he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Events from the year 1598 in art.
Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international clientele.
Bernardino Luini was a north Italian painter from Leonardo's circle during the High Renaissance. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described as having taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently, many of his works were attributed to Leonardo. He was known especially for his graceful female figures with elongated eyes, called Luinesque by Vladimir Nabokov.
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Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome. The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, like the Flight into Egypt, was a popular subject in art, but Caravaggio's composition, with an angel playing the viol to the Holy Family, is unusual.
Judith Beheading Holofernes is a painting of the biblical episode by Caravaggio, painted in c. 1598–1599 or 1602, in which the widow Judith stayed with the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent after a banquet then decapitated him after he passed out drunk. The painting was rediscovered in 1950 and is part of the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome. The exhibition 'Dentro Caravaggio' Palazzo Reale, Milan, suggests a date of 1602 on account of the use of light underlying sketches not seen in Caravaggio's early work but characteristic of his later works. The exhibition catalogue also cites biographer artist Giovanni Baglione's account that the work was commissioned by Genoa banker Ottavio Costa.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is an oil painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, painted from 1598-1599. It is part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of Madrid.
Portrait of a Courtesan was a painting by the Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Painted between 1597 and 1599, it was destroyed in Berlin in 1945 and is known only from photographs. It has been suggested that the portrait represents the goddess Flora.
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (1578–1635) was an Italian artist and important Neapolitan follower of Caravaggio. He was a member of the murderous Cabal of Naples, with Belisario Corenzio and Giambattista Caracciolo, who were rumoured to have poisoned and disappeared their competition for painting contracts.
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Nicolas Régnier (1591–1667), known in Italy as Niccolò Renieri, was a painter, art dealer and art collector from the County of Hainaut, a French-speaking part of the Spanish Netherlands. He is often referred to as a Flemish artist because this term was often used to designate people from the Spanish Netherlands. After training in Antwerp, he was active in Italy where he was part of the international Caravaggesque movement. His subjects include genre scenes with card players, fortune tellers, soldiers and concerts, religious scenes, saints, mythological and allegorical scenes, and portraits. He also painted a few scenes with carnivals.
Penitent Magdalene or Penitent Magdalen refers to a post-biblical period in the life of Mary Magdalene, according to medieval legend, and a large number of artworks showing this subject, including:
Penitent Magdalene is a 16th-century oil on canvas painting by Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. The painting portrays a repentant Mary Magdalene, bowed over in penitent sorrow as she leaves behind her dissolute life, its trappings abandoned beside her. At the time of its completion, ca. 1594–1595, the painting was unconventional for its contemporary realism and departure from traditional Magdalene iconography. It has invited both criticism and praise, with speculation even into the 21st century as to Caravaggio's intentions. The work hangs in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome.
Magdalene with the Smoking Flame is a c. 1640 oil-on-canvas depiction of Mary Magdalene by French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour. Two versions of this painting exist, one in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the other in the Louvre Museum.
Penitent Magdalene is a 1616–1618 painting by the Italian baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. This painting hangs in the Pitti Palace in Florence. The subject is the biblical figure Mary Magdalene, but the painting references another biblical woman, Mary, the sister of Lazarus. This painting was likely painted during Gentileschi's Florentine period.
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Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy is a painting by the Italian baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. It is in the Doge’s Palace in Venice.
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Media related to Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio at Wikimedia Commons