Elevation of Mary Magdalene
ca. 1510 (?)
tempera and oil on wood
painted surface: 50.7 x 37.1 cm
Inv. 55.191
The 13th-century Legenda Aurea relates how fourteen years after Christ’s death the sinful woman of the Bible, Mary Magdalene reached the port of Marseille by a miraculous journey in a boat. From there, she retired in the wasteland to spend the rest of her life in reclusion and penitent self-denial. She lived on divine sustenance only: when angels came to lift her high in the air, she heard celestial harmonies that fulfilled her so completely that she did not need bodily nourishment. The direct model for the composition was Pollaiuolo’s painting in Staggia, but Verrocchio’s sculpture also influenced it, especially his Forteguerri tomb monument in the Cathedral of Pistoia, at the execution of which Lorenzo di Credi worked as an assistant. A witty speculation set forth earlier in regard to the provenance of the work, supposing the work was brought to Hungary by Ippolito d’Este (ca. 1479 – 1520), must be disproved: the picture was purchased by Primate Simor in 1878 in Rome from Canon Raffaele Bertinelli. A lower quality version of the painting is in the Johnson Collection in Philadelphia.
D.S.
