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Res. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 33: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 17 (M. 1796–97); 315 (F. 1798); 378 (M. 1804);
KM 492

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of a single piece of
coarse, plain-weave linen fabric. The ground is red. The painting
has been removed from its strainer and stored unframed, causing
damage to it. There are several tears in the canvas and the bottom
right corner is missing. There are many paint losses all over
the surface and a tendency to flaking. The varnish is yellowed and
there are traces of old brownish varnish encrusted into the paint
layer. Documented restorations: 1844: Restored by Mandelgren;
1925: Yellowed varnish and old repairs removed, repaired again and
varnished.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867 (as Luca Giordano); Sander 1872–
76, III, no. 378, p. 129 (as Carlo Cignani); Göthe 1887, p. 52 (as Carlo
Cignani); Göthe 1910, p. 70; NM Cat. 1958, p. 233 (as anonymous,
17th century); Roli 1977, pp. 97, 243 (as Carlo Cignano, studio replica);
NM Cat. 1990, p. 420 (as anonymous, 17th century).

In Fredenheim’s catalogue this painting is
attributed to Luca Giordano, but already in the
inventory of 1804 it was reattributed to Carlo
Cignani.¹ This indicates that it was Corvi and
Tofanelli who actually reattributed the painting
on a now lost paper label, later transcribed. In
the Dulwich Picture Gallery there is a tondo by
Cignani with an identical composition [Fig. 1].²
While working on his great catalogue of Bolognese
painting, Renato Roli identified the Nationalmuseum
painting as a “studio replica” of the
Dulwich work, yet in the 1990 Nationalmuseum
catalogue of European paintings it was given an
uncertain attribution to an “unknown Italian
master, 17th century”.³

The Nationalmuseum painting is very close to
the one in Dulwich, although it displays a more
detailed composition, with several more of the
traditional attributes typical of the subject matter,
apart from the skull and the book found in
both paintings. Most prominent among these additional
attributes is of course the crucifix to the
left in the composition. There is also the censer
placed in front of the book and the scourge lying
underneath it. To the right there is a landscape
depicted in the background. Portrayals of the
Magdalen with these attributes follow an Italian
medieval tradition concerning her later life, the
substance of which derives from earlier legends
of Mary the Egyptian and her hermitage in the
desert. The more common legend is that Mary
Magdalene retired to Sainte-Baume in France,
where she lived for thirty years in penitence.

There are also a few minor details found in
the Dulwich painting that are missing in the
Nationalmuseum work, such as the slips of paper
used to mark pages in the book. In addition, the
pages of the book fold in different ways in the two
paintings.

Another painting of the same subject attributed
to Cignani, but with the Magdalen shown en
face and only with the skull, was sold at Christie’s,
New York. This painting is similar to the other
two in its gentle, yet passionate, depiction of the
subject matter, in the overall range of colours,
and in details such as the execution of the Magdalen’s
hair.⁴ A drawing that could possibly be connected
to these two different representations of
the Magdalen is in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Although the position of the figure is different,
the drawing is quite similar in its depiction of the
drapery, the hair, the exposed left breast and the
muscular left arm, positioned in exactly the same
way in relation to the head as in the paintings.⁵

Some peculiarities, exhibited in both the
Dulwich and the Nationalmuseum painting, may
seem quite specific to the composition, compared 
with Cignani’s oeuvre as a whole: for example,
the Magdalen’s clean and forcefully rendered
profile, with the marked tip of the nose and the
quite pouty lips, and the oddly elongated index
and middle finger of her left hand holding the
skull. As for the profile, Cignani’s rendering
seems at odds with his more finely executed
full-face or three-quarter profile depictions, for
example the Magdalen sold at Christie’s, which
are characteristically delicate and even naturalistic.
Yet we have to assume that the rendering
of the profile was quite intentional. In fact, a
similar type of profile is found in several of Cignani’s
paintings, even if it possibly seems of lesser
mastery in this specific instance.⁶

Painting the Magdalen’s fingers, it appears as
if Cignani aimed to have them wrap almost all
around the skull, enveloping as well as caressing
it. This is a striking characteristic of the painting
that makes it stand out amongst numerous similar
works with this subject. Cignani conveys the
Magdalen’s intense contemplation of death by a
combination of the passionately physical, through
her hands powerfully cupping the skull, and the
resolutely spiritual, through her direct gaze into
its eye sockets. In striving to convey the Magdalen’s
repentance, Cignani has made excellent use
of the physicality of the hands – a practice familiar
from several of his other paintings – but in
this case it has resulted in an almost manneristic
distortion of the fingers of the left hand.

However, although the rendering of the
Magdalen herself is very similar between the two
paintings, there are certain differences in the handling
of her raiment; the highlights of the folds
are executed with somewhat more finely detailed
brushstrokes in the Dulwich painting. Together
with certain characteristics of the execution of
the landscape, for example the way the trees and
leaves are depicted, very similar to other paintings
that are more certainly ascribed to the studio
of Cignani, this would possibly affirm the status
of the Nationalmuseum painting as a “replica di
bottega”.⁷

If we accept the Nationalmuseum painting
as a studio replica, it could possibly have been
executed by either Marcantonio Franceschini
(1648–1729) or Luigi Quaini (1611–1680). This
would also be in line with Buscaroli’s dating of
the Dulwich painting to the 1670s, a period when
Cignani made great use of collaborators, assistants
and students, and when both Franceschini
and Quaini were active as such.⁸ Franceschini
may have used Cignani’s preliminary drawings
for the Dulwich painting, possibly the drawing in
the Art Institute of Chicago, as complementary
material. This working practice would be quite
familiar to him, as he had for example executed
frescoes after Cignani’s cartoons on a couple of
occasions, like the lunettes for the Portico di San
Bartolomeo and the Madonna appare a San Petronio
in the church of San Petronio, Bologna.

Despite its present poor condition, there is
no question about the Nationalmuseum painting’s
overall quality, which is on par with the
Dulwich painting; in fact, its status as a replica
could perhaps be debated. It would seem logical
that the more detailed painting, with more of the
traditional attributes, was the first executed in the
studio chronologically; in this case the Stockholm
painting, which also exhibits a finely detailed
landscape. However, these attributes could just as
likely have been added, or subtracted, in response
to a specific commission from a patron who
had seen whichever painting was executed first.
According to a document kept in the Biblioteca
Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna – Breve
racconto della vita di Carlo Cignani descritta del
Muto Accademico Concorde di Ravenna ed Acceso
di Bologna – dated to 14 August 1702, a painting
of “una mezza figura pure di S. Maria Maddalena
al natural” belonged to the Principe di Lippi
e Schevemburgo⁹ (Schwemburg). This has been
identified as the Dulwich painting.

The influence of Cignani’s Magdalen can be
traced in the work of other contemporary Bolognese
artists at least, such as Lorenzo Pasinelli
(1629–1700). Pasinelli painted the same subject for
the Duke of Liechtenstein in 1685. In that painting,
the Magdalen is depicted with a profile very
similar to Cignani’s figure, and there is also close
similarity in the way the contemplative passion of
her repentance is envisioned.¹⁰

DP
1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet de
Martelli (à Rome).
2 Murray 1980, p. 300, no. 257; Roli 1977, pp. 97, 241–243,
pl. 106b.
3 NM Cat. 1990, p. 420.
4 Christie’s, Important Old Master Paintings, Lot 27, Sale
9042 of 29 January 1999, New York.
5 Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 1922.690.
6 Roli 1977, pp. 97, 241–243, pl. 106b.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.; Buscaroli 1953, pp. 65, 99–112.
9 Vitelli Buscaroli 1953, p. 15.
10 There is also another painting by Pasinelli where the
Magdalen bears a clear resemblance to Cignani’s, in the
Spada Collection, Rome. Roli 1977, pp. 94, 284–285, pls.
93a and 95b.[END]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2012

Den botfärdiga Magdalena