01 Work, RELIGIOUS ART - Simone Pignoni's Penitent Magdalene, With Footnotes - #131

Workshop of Simone Pignoni, Florence 1611 – 1698

Penitent Magdalene

Oil on canvas

26⅛ by 19¼ in.; 66.2 by 48.7 cm.

Private collection

Sold  for 6,930 USD in May 2022

This half-length Mary Magdalene depicted as a voluptuous female nude is characteristic of the seventeenth-century Florentine painter Simone Pignoni and artists in his orbit. The Saint’s windswept locks and swirling red drapery heighten the composition’s sense of drama and imbue the image with an effect of swift, graceful movement. This work was likely made by a member of Pignoni’s workshop. More on this painting

Penitent Magdalen refers to a post-biblical period in the life of Mary Magdalen.

The sacrament of Penance had important significance in Counter-Reformation spirituality, and artists frequently portrayed penitent saints as exemplars of religious fervor. Such works were meant to inspire a greater devotion. On the other hand, the popularity of The Magdalene as a subject is also associated with her implied sexuality. Her passive gaze and partially naked body appealed to male viewers, for whom such paintings offered a moralizing context through which to engage with the sensuality of the female form. The Penitent Magdalene

Simone Pignoni (April 17, 1611 – December 16, 1698) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He is best known for painting in a style reminiscent of the morbidly sensual Furini. Reflective of this obsession is his self-portrait, c. 1650, in which he depicts himself building up a plump naked female from a skeleton. The biographer Baldinucci, in what little he notes of the painter, recalls him as the scandalous "imitator of (Furini's) licentious inventions".

Among his more conventional works are a St. Agatha cured by St. Peter (attributed) in the Museo Civico di Trieste; a St. Louis providing a banquet for the poor (c. 1682) now in the church of Santa Felicita in Florence, commissioned by Conte Luigi Gucciardini; and a Madonna and child in glory with archangels Saints Michael and Raphael in battle armor and San Antonio of Padua (1671) for the Cappella di San Michele in Santissima Annunziata. He painted an Allegory of Peace in Palazzo Vecchio. A Penitent Magdalen that has been attributed to Pignoni is found in the Pitti Palace. In San Bartolomeo in Monteoliveto, he painted a Madonna appearing to Blessed Bernardo Tolomeo. More Simone Pignoni

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