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Early Wood Carving of the Penitent Magdalene
Ref: 4678
An early wood carving of a recumbent Magdalene. Traces of polychrome, gold, and green for the dress, almost completely gone, but the piece as a whole has rich patina, suggestive of great age. The face is the most finely carved and has those pinched pious features you associate with German or French religious figures from the 1400 and 1500s. Found in the grenier’ or attic of a Capucin convent, as a pencil inscription in French to the base states, making this quite an intriguing and fresh find. It came out of a property in East Anglia. Made of poplar (?).
The legend of Mary Magdalene is that she travelled from the Holy Land to France where she lived as a hermit. Her choice of a penitent and austere life meant that of all saints she appealed greatly to this nuns of this particular order. Here she has her hand on a skull, and lies on a symbolic stony ground, she is also half naked. It was not uncommon for her even in early medieval art to be represented as wearing no clothes and to be only dressed by her long straggly hair.
France 15th-17th cent
H: 25cm (9.8in)
W: 73cm (28.7in)
D: 20cm (7.9in)
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