(Pieve di Cadore 1477/90 -1576 Venice) Saint Mary Magdalene, oil on canvas, 110.5 x 96 cm, framed Provenance: Possibly Benjamin West; Possibly sale Christie’s, London, 23–24 June 1820; Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne 1829 sale Christie, Manson & Woods King Street, St. James, London, 7 March 1930, no. 76 (as Titian); with Saville Gallery, London; European private collection Exhibition: British Institution, London 1829, No. 168 Literature: A Brownell Jameson, Companion to the most celebrated private galleries of art in London, London 1844, p. 311, No. 54 (as Titian, formerly Christina of Sweden and Philippe d’Orléans collection); possibly W. Roberts, Memorial of Christie’s. A record of art from 1766–1896, London 1897, Vol. I, p. 95 (measurements 47 x 37in.) H. E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, London 1969, p. 147 (under 125, No. 3 as a copy) The present work has previously been considered as a fully autograph work by Titian. Professor Lionello Puppi, after examining the present painting in the original, believes the present painting to be by Titian and his workshop. Professor Paul Joannides has examined the painting in the original and believes the work to be a product of Titian’s studio, however it has been suggested that Titian might have worked on parts of the sky and have added a few touches to the white drapery over the Magdalene’s near arm. In suggesting interventions of this nature a manner of working is proposed that could hardly be described as rational, but Titian often added enlivening touches to paintings produced by his studio, not always in the most apparently significant areas. Titian produced two series of half-length Magdalenes, in which she is posed in variants of a Venus pudica. The first series was painted in the 1530s and extended, perhaps, into the early 1540s. In this series the first example was probably painted for Vittoria Colonna and is now lost. The earliest panel to survive is that in the Pitti Palace in Florence. In this version the Magdalene hides her nudity solely – and not very effectively – with her hair. Three examples of this type are known, two on panel and one on canvas. They range in size between 84 x 64 and 96 x 74 cm. All the examples of the second series are known (there would appear to be seven versions surviving in the original are on canvas and measure between 128 x 103 and 105 x 95 cm., and all the surviving , or documented examples with the exception of one seem to date from the 1560s). In these the Magdalene is quite elaborately draped, with a white shift and an shawl striped in red, black and white. These stripes differ slightly in arrangement in all the known examples and Titian no doubt encouraged this variety. In a couple of examples – the one in private collection published by Rearick who identified it as the ex-Badoer version and that in the Getty – a further piece of transparent drapery runs diagonally from the Magdalen’s left shoulder to her right upper arm. Some of the versions, notably that in the Hermitage, which came from the Barbarigo collection, seems to be entirely autograph while others, such as that now in Stuttgart seem to be largely studio. But cleaning and restoration can often make a considerable difference. The version in Naples, for example, which was painted for Alessandro Farnese, has improved greatly with recent restoration and is now considered to be largely autograph. It is not known when Titian devised this second type. He seems to have begun a Magdalene for Granvelle in the late 1540s but he did not deliver it until after Granvelle’s death, in the mid 1550s and this is lost or is unidentified. It is suspected that it was of the second type, but one cannot be sure. Titian painted another for Philip II in 1561 but was seduced by a large offer to sell it to Badoer and therefore painted another version for Philip. Badoer’s version was identified by Rearick with one in an undisclosed private collection, as noted above, and the canvas sent to Philip seems to have been destroyed in a fire in the later 19th century, but is known in various copies (one is reproduced in the 2004 Prado Titian exhibition catalogue as fig. 47). Of course, it is likely that Titian and his studio painted other versions for unrecorded clients, but we have no means of knowing how many there were or for whom they were painted. The present painting has most in common with the Hermitage and Stuttgart versions. The landscape in the right middle ground is very similar to the landscapes in both, although the tree differs slightly and rock at the left is different – indeed, its profile and its vegetation differ from all other versions. It does not appear to be a copy of either the Hermitage or Stuttgart paintings, for it is much tighter in handling and sharper in definition than either which would be a surprising interpretation of a much more broken surface. And that it is not based on either is also suggested much more strongly by another feature: the Magdalene’s pink drapery, articulated with gold and white stripes. This colour scheme occurs in no other version of the subject and it is very unlike the sorts of colour schemes that Titian and his followers were using in the 1560s. Indeed a parallel in Titian’s work of any period is hard to find and the nearest appears to be the saddle blanket of the Charles V at Muhlberg, of 1548 and the drapery of the kneeling St Catherine in the Virgin and Child with St Catherine in Philadelphia, which most scholars seem to date circa 1550. In a letter dated 10th September 1554 to Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Titian recorded sending a painting depicting a “divota Maddalena”. This might suggest that the present version records that sent to Granvelle, but since the painting is lost this cannot be more than a possibility and the issue of patronage must be left open. In summary the present painting is a studio copy or version – probably painted around 1550, and it may have been retouched by the master a few years later – of a lost painting that Titian executed in the mid-to late 1540s for an unknown client and that it records a phase of the Magdalene’s drapery design which is antecedent to all the known other versions and of which we do not have other examples. We are extremely grateful to Professor Paul Joannides for his help in cataloguing of this lot.

additional picture
Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square, London, Das Stadthaus der Marquess of Lansdowne, entworfen von Robert Adam.