(Genoa 1598 – circa 1669)
The Conversion of Mary Magdalene,
oil on canvas, 118 x 96.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly Francesco Vigo collection, Genoa (in 1665);
Private collection Genoa, until 2018;
art market;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Turin, Museo Pietro Accorsi, La donna nella pittura italiana del Seicento e Settecento. Il Genio e la Grazia, March 28 – 27 July 2003, no. 78

Literature:
L. Magnani, Cultura laica e scelte religiose: artisti, committenti e tematiche del sacro, in: E. Gavazza, et al., La pittura in Liguria. Il secondo Seicento, Genoa 1990, p. 370, 373, fig. 451 (as Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari);
A. Acordon, in: M. Cataldi Gallo, Arte e lusso della Seta a Genova dal ‘500 al ‘700, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2000, p. 211;
D. Sanguineti, Il gioiello tra decoro e simbolo. Spunto per una ricerca nella pittura genovese, in: F. Boggero, Gioie di Genova e Liguria: oreficeria e moda tra Quattro e Ottocento, 2001, p. 24;
A. Acordon, in: A. Cottino, La donna nella pittura italiana del Seicento e Settecento. Il Genio e la Grazia, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2003, p. 206, tav. 78 (as Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari)

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for her help in cataloguing the present painting (written communication).

The present painting could be identified as the ‘quadro di Santa Marta e Santa Maria Maddalena di mano di detto Ferrari’ [‘painting of Saint Martha and Saint Mary Magdalene by the hand of said Ferrari’], which is cited in the inventory of the will of Francesco Vigo, of 5 June 1665 (partially published in V. Belloni, Penne, pennelli e quadrerie, Genoa 1973, p. 52).

Several versions of this subject by Giovanni Andrea De Ferrari are known. One for example is in a private collection (see Pittori genovesi a Genova nel ‘600 e nel ‘700, Cinisello Balsamo 1960, cat. 63). The theme of the conversion of Magdalene shows the Saint in the act of divesting herself of the emblems of vanity including removing her jewellery.

The particular attention to the expressive possibilities of the colour, as well as to the presence of a dynamic and lively range of gestures together with the choice of a type of model that follows the example of Rubens are characteristic of the artist’s production from the 1640s (see A. Acordon, in: Genova nell’Età Barocca, exhibition catalogue, Genoa 1992, pp. 159-60). The present painting is, therefore, chronologically close to the popular text dedicated by the Genoese poet Anton Giulio Brignole Sale to Maria Maddalena peccatrice e convertita, (Genoa 1636) suggesting that such iconography of the Magdalene was well diffused in Liguria at this time.

Giovanni Andrea De Ferrari first trained with Bernardo Castello (circa 1610-12) and then with Bernardo Strozzi (circa 1613-19). It was during the 1640s that the artist began to express himself in the style of his first maturity and attained a personal language that married a taste for colour, derived from Strozzi and Rubens, with the latest development of layered painting derived from Jan Roos and Van Dyck. Following in the traditions of the mid seventeenth-century Genoese school of painting his work followed the tenets of naturalism.