The Penitent Magdalene

Artist Doménikos Theotokópoulos, called El Greco (Greek, 1541 - 1614)

Dateca. 1580-1585

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 40 x 32 1/4 inches (101.6 x 81.92 cm)
Framed: 50 7/16 x 42 x 3 5/8 inches (128.11 x 106.68 x 9.21 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number30-35

SignedNone

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThree-quarter figure of Mary Magdalene seated wtih hands folded on lap and head and eyes turned toward turbulent sky, upper left. Rocks and ivy on right with skull and glass vessel on rock ledge, lower right.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Masters of Spanish painting, Philadelphia Museum of Art, April 10-May 10, 1937, unnumbered.

Domenico Theotocopuli: El Greco, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 19.

Precursors of Modern Art: The Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, twenty-fifth anniversary exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY, October 1938, no. 14.

Art in Religion, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, OK, October 2-December 2, 1945, unnumbered.

Paintings by the Masters, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, May 5-June 2, 1946, no. 4.

Loan exhibition of masterworks by El Greco, The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA, May 17-June 21, 1947, no. 5.

Masterpieces of Spanish Painting, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, OH, October 8-November 14, 1954, no. 9.

Inaugural Exhibition, Oklahoma Arts Center, Oklahoma City, December 5, 1958-January 31, 1959, no. 159.

John Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis. "El Greco to Goya," February 10-March 24, 1963; Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, Providence, April 19-May 26, 1963, no. 20.

Religion in Painting, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AK, December 7, 1963–January 30, 1964, no. 2.

75 masterworks: an exhibition of paintings in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the

Portland Art Association, 1892-1967, Portland Art Museum, OR, December 12, 1967-January 21, 1968, no. 50.

El Greco of Toledo, Museo del Prado, Madrid, April 1-June 5, 1982; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., July 2-September 6, 1982; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, September 26–November 21, 1982; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX, December 12, 1982–February 6, 1983, no. 14.

El Greco Exhibition, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, October 18-December 14, 1986; Nara Prefectural Museum of Art, January 6-March 1, 1987; Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, March 11-24, 1987, no. 12.

El Greco: Identidad y transformación: Creta. Italia. España, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, February 3–May 16, 1999; Palacio De exposiciones, Rome, June 2–September 19, 1999; Pinacoteca Nacional-Museo Alexandros Soutzos, Athens, October 18, 1999–January 17, 2000, no. 31.

El Greco, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, May 4-September 16, 2001, no. 16.

El Greco and Modernism, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, April 28-August 12, 2012, unnumbered.

The Greek of Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, March 14–June 14, 2014, no. 14.

El Greco: Painter and Master, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain, September 8-December 9, 2014, no. 41.

El Greco, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 14, 2019–February 10, 2020 ; Art Institute of Chicago, March 7, 2020–October 19, 2020 (Chicago only).

Picasso -- El Greco, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland, June 11-September 25, 2022.

Gallery Label

According to the Bible, Mary Magdalene supported Jesus in his final moments and mourned his death. She also bore witness to his resurrection. Like all of us, she also had flaws and was committed to overcome them through a life of penance and contemplation. Here, the heavenly light above her suggests that she was rewarded for her commitment to her faith. Works like this one of penitent saints were meant to inspire greater devotion at a time when Protestant reformers challenged the dominant power of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church recognized Mary Magdalene as a saint in 1969.

Provenance

With D. J. Rodríguez, Seville, 1908;

Enrique Martínez Lechón, Seville, by 1929;

With José Gutiérrez, Seville;

With Raimundo Ruiz y Ruiz, Madrid;

Purchased from Ruiz through Maxwell Blake by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1930.

Published References

Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, El Greco, vol. 2 (Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, 1908), no. 391, p. 617.

Santiago Montoto, “Del tesoro artistico nacional: Los ‘Grecos’ de Sevilla,” Blanco y Negro 39, no. 1.967 (January 27, 1929): unpaginated, (repro.).

ARTNews 29, no. 21 (February 21, 1931): 4, (repro.).

Art Digest 5, no. 17 (June 1, 1931): cover, (repro.).

“The Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 17, (repro.).

“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 29.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 35, (repro.).

Maurice Legendre and A. Hartmann, Domenikos Theotokopoulos called El Greco (London: Commodore, 1937), 449, (repro.).

Masters of Spanish Painting, exh. cat. (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1937), unpaginated.

Assia Rubinstein, et al., Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco, exh. cat. (Paris: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1937), unpaginated, (repro.).

Ludwig Goldscheider, El Greco (New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1938), unpaginated, (repro.).

Precursors of Modern Art: The Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, twenty-fifth anniversary exhibition, exh.cat. (Rochester: The Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, 1938), 8, 16, (repro.).

“6 Centuries of Art Lent to the Corn Belt,” ARTNews 37, no. 27 (April 1, 1939): 12, (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 35, (repro.).

Bernard Frazier, Art in Religion, exh. cat. (Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Art Center, 1945), 2-3, (repro.).

Paintings by the Masters, exh. cat (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1946), unpaginated.

Walter Hell et al., Loan Exhibition of Masterworks by El Greco (San Francisco: M.H. de Young Museum, 1947), unpaginated, (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 51, (repro.).

José Camón Aznar, Dominico Greco (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1950), 1: 401-02, 407, (repro.); 2: no. 454, pp. 1379.

Arthur Miller, “L.A. County views ‘One World of Art’” Art Digest (September 15, 1951): 10, (repro.).

Masterpieces of Spanish Painting, exh. cat. (Columbus, OH: Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, 1954), unpaginated.

Inaugural Exhibition, exh. cat. (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Arts Center, 1959), unpaginated, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 51, (repro.).

Harold E. Wethey, El Greco and His School (Princeton University Press, 1962), 1: (repro.); 2: no. 260, pp. 137, 138-39, (repro.).

El Greco to Goya: A Loan Exhibition of Spanish Painting of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries (Indianapolis: John Herron Museum of Art, 1963), unpaginated, (repro.).

“’Del Greco a Goya,’ Exposición de Pintura Española en los Estados Unidos,” review of El Greco to Goya, Goya, no. 54 (May-June 1963): 420, (repro.).

Priscilla Muller, “Paintings from Spain’s Past at Indianapolis and Providence,” review of El Greco to Goya, Art Quarterly 26, no. 1 (1963): 101, 103.

Religion in Painting, exh. cat. (Little Rock: Arkansas Arts Center, 1964), unpaginated.

75 masterworks: an exhibition of paintings in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Portland Art Association, 1892-1967, exh. cat. (Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1967), unpaginated, (repro.).

Gianni Manzini and Tiziana Frati, L'Opera completa del Greco (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), no. 20b., p. 94.

Marilyn Stokstad, “Spanish Art from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 499-500.

José Gudiol, Doménico Theotokópoulos: El Greco: 1541-1614 (New York: Viking, 1973), 103, 107, 343, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 106, (repro.).

John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York: Abbeville, 1979), 154.

Jonathan Brown et al., El Greco of Toledo, exh. cat. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), 113-114, 233, (repro.).

El Greco Exhibition, exh. cat. (Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 1986), 111, 183, (repro.).

José Álvarez Lopera, El Greco: Identidad y transformación: Creta. Italia. España, exh. cat. (Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1999), 52, 186, 259, 373-74, 417, (repro.).

Jérôme Coignard, “Le Soleil Noir de Greco,” review of El Greco: Identidad y transformación: Creta. Italia. España, by José Álvarez Lopera, Connaissance des Arts, no. 559 (March 1999): 44-50, (repro.).

Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Fernando Checa Cremades, El Greco, exh. cat. (Vienna: Kunsthistorishes Museum Wien, 2001), 38, 158-159, (repro.).

“Cashing in,” The Kansas City Star (July 29, 2006): F16, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 65, (repro.).

Beat Wismer and Michael Scholz-Hänsel, El Greco and Modernism, exh. cat. (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012), 88, (repro.).

Laura Gascoigne, “A most eccentric master,” review of El Greco and Modernism, by Beat Wismer and Michael Scholz-Hänsel, The Spectator (May 19, 2012): 48, (repro.).

Ferdinando Marías, El Greco of Toledo: Painter of the Visible and the Invisible, exh. cat. (Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2014), unpaginated, (repro.).

Leticia Ruiz Gómez, El Greco: Painter and Master, exh. cat. ([Toledo]: Fundación El Greco, 2014), 57, 60-61, 226, (repro.).

Rebecca J. Long, ed., El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020).

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