(Genoa circa 1635–1672)
The Penitent Magdalene,
oil on canvas, 120.5 x 88 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Wannenes, Genoa, 27 November 2012, lot 144 (as Flemish Painter, 17th Century);
Private collection, Rome

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for suggesting the attribution and dating the present painting to circa 1656–60.

This Magdalene is typical of the female figures painted by Stefano Magnasco and it can be compared to the Susanna and the Elders conserved in a Genoese private collection (see A. Orlando, Stefano Magnasco e la cerchia di Valerio Castello, Cinisello Balsamo 2001, fig. 63).

The present canvas is dated to around 1656-60 when Magnasco’s style was closest to the pictorial vibrancy of Peter Paul Rubens, who during these years painted his Susanna and the Elders now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. Indeed, in 1656 Stefano Magnasco was also in Rome. Rubens however had already worked in Stefano Magnasco´s native city, Genoa, and his characteristic style of colourism had entered the vernacular of the local school of painting.

Stefano Magnasco, father of Alessandro, was born in 1635 in Genoa and he trained in the studio of Valerio Castello. After a brief period during his youth in Rome he returned to Genoa. Here, the artist established his studio producing paintings that reveal a range of influences. Stefano Magnasco is an eclectic painter who used the brilliant colours of Castello without excluding the sensitivity of Van Dyck’s Genoese period, and who knew how to combine the serene and solemn gestures of Roman painting with the exuberance of Rubens.