The Ecstasy of the Magdalen
1616/1620
Painter, Lombard, 1574 - 1625
Procaccini was one of the most gifted artists working in Lombardy in the early seventeenth century. His art was influenced by a variety of painters, from Raphael to Correggio, Parmigianino, and Rubens. His work was also affected by the reformist teachings of the powerful Milanese Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Procaccini primarily painted devotional subjects with great fervor that are nevertheless full of sensuality and drama.
His elegant Ecstasy of the Magdalen was probably painted for the prominent Doria family in Genoa, for whom he painted no fewer than sixty pictures. Mary Magdalen swoons in ecstasy as she is supported by winged putti below a group of refined celestial music-making angels. The two figure groups are united through gesture, glance, and expression to form one of Procaccini's most successful compositions.
An early follower of Christ, Mary Magdalen was present at the Crucifixion, and may be the woman who anointed his feet in the house of Simon. She has been called a prostitute, a sinner, or simply a woman who abandoned herself to a life of luxury before devoting herself to Jesus and his teachings. Earlier depictions of Mary Magdalen usually focused on her meditative or tearful penitence for her sins, with the identifying ointment jar nearby. As was common to later depictions, Procaccini's Magdalen is shown in uninhibited ecstasy moments before she is born aloft to heaven, a dramatic scene that allowed the artist to best show off his virtuoso painting technique.
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
original canvas: 213.8 x 143.6 cm (84 3/16 x 56 1/2 in.)
overall size (lined canvas and stretcher): 216 x 146 cm (85 1/16 x 57 1/2 in.)
framed: 258.1 x 189.6 x 10.8 cm (101 5/8 x 74 5/8 x 4 1/4 in.)
gross weight (painting and frame together): 65.772 kg (145 lb.) -
Accession
2002.12.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Probably commissioned by Gian Carlo Doria [d. 1625], Genoa.[1] Counts of Adanero, Madrid, by the late 19th century, until c. 1936.[2] (Caylus Anticuario, Madrid), by c. 1990;[3] private collection, Boston; consigned to (Hall & Knight Ltd., New York and London); purchased 8 February 2002 by NGA.
[1] Procaccini painted more than sixty pictures for Doria, which are all recorded in three inventories discovered in the late 20th century by Dr. Giorgio Fulco in the Neapolitan archives of the Doria D'Angri (see Hugh Brigstocke, "Giulio Cesare Procaccini: Ses Attaches Genoises...," Revue de l'Art, 85 [1989]: 45-60). The last of the inventories, made after Doria's death in 1625 and possibly after that of his wife in 1634, incorporates several works by Procaccini absent from the second inventory, which dates from between 1617 and 1620. Among the entries hitherto not identified is a picture described under number 437 as Una Madalena rapita da angeli del Procaccino, valued at 150 scudi, a relatively high figure, and exactly the same as another high quality painting, a Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Given its size and importance, and its style within the painter's oeuvre, the NGA painting, the only known instance of Procaccino painting this subject, is almost certainly the picture recorded in the third Doria inventory.
The subsequent provenance of the painting, and many others in Doria's collection, became complicated after the death of his son, Agostino, in 1644, when at least part of the collection was inherited by Gian Carlo's brother, Marc Antonio Dorio (see Procaccino, Cerano, Morrazone, Dipinti Lombardi del primo Seicento dalle civiche collezioni Genovesi, Exh. cat., Palazzo Bianco, Genoa, 1992; and Hugh Brigstocke, Burlington Magazine CXXVI [January 1994]: 35). (Information provided by the dealer's prospectus, in NGA curatorial files)
[2] According to Enrique Gutiérrez de Calderón (letter of 10 January 2002 to Philip Conisbee, in NGA curatorial files), the painting was part of the Adanero collection until it was sold after the Spanish Civil War. The collection was assembled during the second half of the 19th century, and included a vast number of Spanish, Flemish, and Italian paintings. The painting had a pendant, The Prayer in the Garden, which belonged to the Viscount of Roda, a descendant of the Count of Adanero, but its whereabouts are unknown (in 2002). When published in 1965 (Alfonso E. Pérez Sanchez, Pintura Italiana del S. XVII en España, Ph.D. dissertation, Madrid, 1965: 363), both paintings were known only by photographs, taken in 1936, in the Archivo de Recuperación del Patrimonio Artístico.
[3] When the painting was purchased from Caylus, it was sold from the United States, where it had apparently been for some time (letter of 19 December 2001 from Nicholas H.J. Hall to Philip Conisbee).
Associated Names
Exhibition History
2002
Procaccini in America, Hall & Knight Ltd., New York, 2002, no. 12, repro.
2017
L'ultimo Caravaggio: eredi e nuovi maestri: Napoli, Genova e Milano a confronto, 1610-1640, Gallerie d'Italia - Piazza Scala, Milan, 2017- 2018.
2022
Superbarocco: Arte a Genova da Rubens a Moagnasco [A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600-1750], [canceled for National Gallery of Art venue], Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2022, no.3 (English catalogue no. 8), repro.
Bibliography
1965
Sánchez, Alfonso E. Pérez. "Pintura Italiana del S. XVII en España." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Madrid, 1965: 363.
1973
Belloni, Venanzio. Penne - Pennelli e Quadrerie. Cultura e Pittura Genovese del Seicento. Genoa, 1973: 62-63.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 107, no. 83, color repro.
2015
"Art for the Nation: The Story of the Patrons' Permanent Fund." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 53 (Fall 2015):20, repro.
Wikidata ID
Q20176956