(Pistoia 1503 – after 1548? Naples)
Mary Magdalen,
oil on panel, 85 x 52 cm, framed

This present painting is a significant addition to the oeuvre of Leonardo Grazia, called Leonardo da Pistoia. Born in Pistoia in 1503, he moved to Rome and is mentioned by Giorgio Vasari as ‘Lionardo detto il Pistoia’, in his account of the life of Grazia’s master, Giovan Francesco Penni. This provides support for the very clear stylistic echoes of artists such as Raphael – with whom Penni collaborated – and Giulio Romano in Leonardo Grazia’s work.

Leonardo Grazia is documented in Pistoia in 1528, following the Sack of Rome in 1527, but his entry into the Compagnia di San Luca in Rome in 1534 effectively records the end of the time he spent in his native city. In Rome, Leonardo Grazia absorbed the influence of Raphael and his followers, while also coming under the sway of the dominant artistic trend of the day, the so-called maniera, grace and sensuous artificiality characterising his work of which the present painting is a significant example. He is last documented as living in Naples, where he apparently resided until his death in around 1548.

It was in Naples that Leonardo Grazia established his own flourishing workshop, during which time he was commissioned to execute several works of great importance, such as the altarpiece Saint Michael driving out the devil in the Church of Santa Maria del Parto a Mergellina, Naples (1542).

Grazia’s elegant compositions were in high demand amongst private collectors: works depicting Cleopatra, Lucretia, Venus, Magdalen are listed in the inventories of many collections and testify to the artist’s growing specialisation in the creation of classical and religious heroines: examples of women chosen to highlight values of beauty, strength, chastity, faith. The present painting is stylistically close to his Cleopatra in a private collection, and to his Venus in the Galleria Borghese in Rome (see M. Corso, Eros e Thanatos, Virtus e Voluptas. Leonardo Grazia da Pistoia e I dipinti dedicati a Lucrezia, in: L’autunno della maniera. Studi sulla pittura del tardo Cinquecento a Roma, ed. by M. Corso, A. Ulisse, Milan 2018, figs. 13, 15).