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Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, en depósito en el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC)
Sebastiano Ricci

Mary Magdalen conforted by Angels

ca. 1694
Oil on canvas.
147.2 x 113 cm
Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, en depósito en el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC)
Inv. no.
339
(
1977.47
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
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A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop
This early work by Sebastiano Ricci, which was the subject of an enthusiastic commentary by Rodolfo Pallucchini, has been dated to around 1694. In 1691 the artist was in Rome where he worked for the Colonna family, then in 1694 he was in Milan where he executed the decoration for the church of San Bernardino alle Ossa. Two years later Ricci settled in Venice where he married, executing numerous works for the city and for nearby towns such as Padua. Following his trip to Rome, Ricci’s style underwent a notable change due to the influence of Roman Baroque art and his knowledge of the work of Pietro da Cortona. Both these influences are evident in the present work, as is a more pronounced emphasis on effects of light in comparison with his earlier paintings.

Ricci depicts Mary Magdalen reclining on a rush mat, her body forming a pronounced diagonal line that is emphasised by the figure of the small angel seen from behind in the foreground holding a penitent’s whip, and the great wing of the angel behind her who supports the saint in its arms. Ricci balances the composition on the left through two more angels with curling locks and two cherubim that watch the scene with great interest. This typically Baroque compositional structure was invented by Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Il Baciccio (1639–1709).

The canvas depicts one of the best-known episodes in the life of the Magdalen and focuses on one of her ecstatic experiences. Exhausted by her penitence and meditation — indicated by the open book that she rests on the skull under the cherubim on the right and the penitent’s whip held by the angel in the foreground — the saint faints in the arms of an angel who will transport her during her ecstasies to Paradise.

The canvas was acquired on the Italian art market for the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection in 1977. The report written on the painting prior to its acquisition notes that in 1956 the canvas was in the Palazzo Soranzo-Venier-Van Axel-Barozzi in Venice, and that twenty years later, in 1976, it was still in Venice, in the Ferruzzi Balbi collection.

A notable feature of the composition is the very masculine depiction of the saint with her surprisingly muscular body, thick neck and hard, unattractive features. This is even more striking if the figure is compared to the beautiful, sweet and soft angels surrounding her. Were it not for her prominent, bare breast, the figure’s physical type would suggest a different title for this composition.

The painting has been compared to The Guardian Angel that Ricci painted for the altar Santa Maria del Carmine in Pavia at around the same date as the present canvas.

Mar Borobia
17th Century18th Century - Italian paintingPaintingOilcanvas
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Mary Magdalen comforted by Angels

Mary Magdalen comforted by Angels

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Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Hardcover. Spanish.

Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Hardcover. Spanish.

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Catalogue Hyperreal. The art of trompe l'oeil (Spanish)

Catalogue Hyperreal. The art of trompe l'oeil (Spanish)

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Mary Magdalen conforted by Angels. La Magdalena confortada por ángeles, c. 1694
Mary Magdalen conforted by Angels
Sebastiano Ricci

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Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, en depósito en el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC)

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Mary Magdalen conforted by Angels. La Magdalena confortada por ángeles, c. 1694
Mary Magdalen conforted by Angels
Sebastiano Ricci

©

Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, en depósito en el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC)

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