Past Exhibition

Georges de La Tour's Repentant Magdalene

A young woman with pale skin sits at a table in a darkened room in this vertical painting. Long chestnut-brown hair drapes over her shoulder and her deep, cream-colored, long-sleeved garment is open at her neck. She rests her chin in her right hand, farther from us, as her left reaches for a skull placed on a thick book on the table in front of her. The scene is lit by a single candle mostly out of sight behind the skull. Shown in profile, she looks into a small mirror next to the skull, which reflects that object and the book.
Georges de La Tour, The Repentant Magdalen, c. 1635/1640, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1974.52.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 72 through 77
A young woman with pale skin sits at a table in a darkened room in this vertical painting. Long chestnut-brown hair drapes over her shoulder and her deep, cream-colored, long-sleeved garment is open at her neck. She rests her chin in her right hand, farther from us, as her left reaches for a skull placed on a thick book on the table in front of her. The scene is lit by a single candle mostly out of sight behind the skull. Shown in profile, she looks into a small mirror next to the skull, which reflects that object and the book.
Georges de La Tour, The Repentant Magdalen, c. 1635/1640, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1974.52.1

Overview: A focus exhibition celebrated the 400th anniversary of La Tour's birth. The National Gallery's newly restored Repentant Magdalene was shown with another version by La Tour from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art. Curator was Philip Conisbee, curator of European painting and sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Attendance: 132,130

Brochure: Georges de La Tour's Repentant Magdalene, by Philip Conisbee. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1993.

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