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Saint Mary Magdalen
Bartolomeo Vivarini (Italian (Venetian), active about 1440, died after 1500)
about 1480-90
Medium/Technique
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
56.83 x 36.0 cm (22 3/8 x 14 1/6 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Louis Agassiz Shaw
Accession Number1991.691
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Holding a book against her chest, Mary Magdalen gazes down at an ointment jar in her right hand, a symbol of her devotion to Christ. On Easter morning, she visited the tomb of Jesus to anoint his body. Mary was also identified with a woman in the gospels who applied perfumed ointment to Jesus’s feet during a banquet, a gesture both intimate and humble. Now housed in a reproduction frame, this painting was once part of a multi-paneled altarpiece.
ProvenanceBy 1888, Quincy Adams Shaw (b. 1825 - d. 1908), Boston [see note 1]; by descent to his grandson, Louis Agassiz Shaw (b. 1908 - d. 1990), Boston; 1991, gift of the estate of Louis Agassiz Shaw to the MFA. (Accession Date: November 20, 1991)
NOTES:
[1] The painting is mentioned as being in the Quincy Adams Shaw collection by F. Harck, "Aus amerikansichen Galerien," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft XI (1888): p. 79, where it is attributed to Alvise Vivarini and dated to about 1490.
NOTES:
[1] The painting is mentioned as being in the Quincy Adams Shaw collection by F. Harck, "Aus amerikansichen Galerien," Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft XI (1888): p. 79, where it is attributed to Alvise Vivarini and dated to about 1490.