The Penitent Magdalen
after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1570 - 1629
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
650 x 600 mm
Place of origin
Veneto
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436190
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Penitent Magdalen, after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576), late 16th to early 17th century. Saint Mary Magdalene is shown half - length with head upturned, teary-eyed and right arm across bust, with her attribute the ointment jar on the left and a skull with a book open on top of it on the right. Next to the skull is a coat of arms. Her left arm across is across her waist and she stands in front of a rock with a landscape in the background. This is a reduced copy of one of the many versions of this celebrated composition by Titian. The Belton picture is modelled after the ‘Hermitage’ type, datable to around 1565 and signed TITIANUS P. It is distinguished from the ‘Naples’ and ‘Escorial’ variants by the glass (as opposed to marble) amphora, and the fully-foliate tree. The status of the Hermitage picture has not been questioned and once belonged to the Barbarigo collection, which was bought en bloc by Tsar Nicholas I in 1850. The contents of Titian’s house in the Biri Grande were not included in the treaty of sale to Cristoforo Barbarigo in 1581, and thus its early provenance is unknown. Sir Abraham Hume believed the present picture to be “the original model, from which several pictures have been taken”, and dated it to around 1543.
Provenance
Bought by Giovan Maria Sasso (1742 - 1803) from Cristoforo and Giovanni Francesco Muselli in Verona, and therefore identified by him and by Hume with the picture in that family’s possession that Carlo Ridolfi (Le maraviglie dell’arte della pittura, 1648, Venice, 1924, vol. I, p.198) had regarded as autograph (“il piciolo modello della Maddalena descritta”); bought from Sasso in 1792 by Sir Abraham Hume (1749 - 1838) and thence by descent to John Hume Egerton, Viscount Alford (1812 - 1851) and the John William Spencer Egerton Cust, 2nd Earl Brownlo and Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow and the 5th and 6th Barons Brownlow until acquired by the National Trust with Belton in 1984
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: label: back: in large painted black: A16 and 37 [?]; label of the exhibition of Venetian Art at the New Gallery, 1894 – 5, lent by Lord Brownlow as The Magdalen by Titian. Reg. No. 282-1, with No. 4 added in top left hand corner. Recto: Inscribed with a coat of arms (?Muselli family) in a small cartouche resting near the skull; on back of lining canvas in black: Titianus Pt; on bottom stretcher-bar, printed label of the HUME COLLECTION, with printed cut-out from the catalogue: 16 The Magdalen Titian, with No. 14 added in ink; large painted black number above: A16; illegible room inscribed in white chalk.
Makers and roles
after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576), artist
References
Hume 1829 A. Hume, Notices of the Life and Works of Titian, London, 1829, pp.46-7 Alexander Hume (1749 - 1838) Collection Catalogue, 1824, no. 16 (as by Titian) Waagen 1838 Gustav Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England, 3 vols. (translated by H.E. Lloyd) London, 1838, vol. II, 1838, p.202 Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1877 J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, Titian: His Life and Times, II, London, 1877, p.316 Wethey 1969 H. E. Wethey, Titian I. The Religious Paintings, London, 1969, , cat. no.125, copy no.2, p.147 Rearick 2001 W. R. Rearick, ‘Le Maddalene penitenti di Tiziano’, Arte Veneta, 58, 2001, pp.23-41, :