Christ and Mary Magdalen in the House of Simon
Benedetto Luti (Florence 1666 – Rome 1724)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1693
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
3099 x 1829 mm (122 x 72 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108851
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Christ and Mary Magdalen in the House of Simon by Benedetto Luti (Florence 1666 – Rome 1724), circa 1693. Mary Magdalene anointing Christ's feet with costly ointment and wiping them with her hair in the house of Simon. Acquired at the same sale in 1757, as its pendant (NT 108850), but for almost double the price – 150 guineas. Luti returned to this subject in a later, horizontal composition.
Provenance
Painted in Rome, probably in 1693 (because Luti makes no mention of it in his two letters to Gabbiani about his Cain fleeing from the sight of God after the death of Abel, written in September and December 1692), as a pendant to the Cain fleeing from the sight of God after the death of Abel, for his first patron, Cardinal Giovanni Niccolò Berzighelli of Pisa (but domiciled in Florence);Ignatius Hugford, Florence by 1728;probably acquired from Ignatius Hugford, by the dealer William Kent, by whom offered at auction at Langford’s in February 1757; bought by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 5th Bt, later 1st Baron Scarsdale, for 150 guineas and hung since 1769 (it was not noticed by Horace Walpole on his visit in September 1768, but features in the 1st [1769] edition of the Catalogue) in the Withdrawing Room at Kedleston, along with its pendant, Cain fleeting from the sight of God after the death of Abel – KED/P/155, whose fate it has shared; and thence by descent until bought with part of the contents of Kedleston with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1987 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000)
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to the National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
Benedetto Luti (Florence 1666 – Rome 1724), publisher
References
Luti 1757 Benedetto Luti Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura, 1757, vol.II, 1757, p.61 (letter XXXII, dated 13 Sept.1692)