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The Repentant Magdalen
1648 · Oil on canvas · The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
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image 15.3×20 in on a 16×20 in sheet
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All editionsAbout this painting
Saint Mary Magdalen crosses her hands on her breast and lifts her wet eyes, and the stone around her is cold. Houston reads the crisp lines and icy colours as pious sobriety, and dates Philippe de Champaigne's adherence to Jansenism, a French Catholic sect of great austerity, to the latter 1640s; this is 1648. A skull rests by the open book, and the jar she is known by stands at the edge: Luke's woman washed Christ's feet with her tears and anointed them. No Gospel puts her in a cave; Houston traces it to the Sainte-Baume legend. Luke never names that woman. Gregory the Great did, in 591.
Sources: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 'The Repentant Magdalen', acc. 70.26, object record · CAA review corroborating Champaigne's Jansenist context and distinguishing the Houston Magdalen from his separate 1657 Rennes Magdalen · Museo Nacional del Prado, Alonso Cano, 'The Penitent Magdalene' (1652–1657), collection record · The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 'Mary Magdalene', Stories and Histories, collection highlights · Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend (Legenda aurea), 'The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene' — Caxton translation, Temple Classics ed., vol. 4 · The National Gallery, London, artist record: Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674) · Mary Ann Beavis, 'Who is Mary Magdalene?', Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University (Christian Reflection series) · Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, Book II, Homily 33.1 (PL 76, col. 1239A), preached at Rome c. 591
And standing behind at his feet. she began to wash his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
Luke 7:38 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner)