(Florence 1616–1687)
Mary Magdalene in black and red robes contemplating a skull,
oil on canvas, octagonal, 66.2 x 54 cm, framed (rectangular)

Provenance:
George Tomline collection, Orwell Park, 1857;
Robert Stayner Holford (1808–1892) collection, Dorchester House, London, 1889;
inherited by Sir George Lindsay Holford (1860–1926);
sale, Christie’s, London, 15 July 1927, lot 42 (as Carlo Dolci);
bought by the Raeburn Gallery;
with Trafalgar Galleries, London

<b<Exhibited:<br />St Jude’s Whitechapel, 1889, no. 103;
London, Trafalgar Galleries, Trafalgar Galleries Anniversary Exhibition, 1996, no. 5 (as Carlo Dolci);
Mexico City, Museo Nacional de San Carlos, María Magdalena: éxtasis y arrepentimiento, 17 May – 30 September 2001, no. 44 (as Carlo Dolci)

Literature:
G. F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 1857, III, 1857, p. 441 (as Carlo Dolci);
A./E./R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries Anniversary Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, London 1996, pp. 20–21, no. 5 (as Carlo Dolci);
O. Delenda, in: María Magdalena: éxtasis y arrepentimiento, exhibition catalogue, Mexico City 2001, pp. 212–213, cat. no. 44, ill. p. 152 (as Carlo Dolci);
F. Baldassari, Carlo Dolci, Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Florence 2015, p. 323, no. 4 (under ‘Partially Autograph Works’, as ‘a work begun by Dolci and completed by a worthy pupil of his workshop – Onorio Marinari?’)

The present painting was once part of the celebrated collection of Robert Stayner Holford (1808-1892) who was one of the most distinguished British collectors of the 19th century. He was a wealthy landowner and a scholarly collector of Old Masters, rare books, and manuscripts. He was considered to be a significant connoisseur, at a time when art was becoming an important part of British cultural identity. He built Dorchester House on Park Lane in London, between 1851 and 1853 to display his collection, and it was here where the present Mary Magdalene hung (see fig. 1).

Robert Holford probably acquired the present painting in 1889, when it was exhibited in at St Jude’s Whitechapel, from the collection of George Tomline of Orwell Park. In fact, Gustav Waagen, the Director of the Royal Gallery of Pictures in Berlin at that time, recorded in 1857 the present Magdalene in the Tomline collection as “The Magdalene contemplating a death’s head – a picture remarkable for pleasing forms, beauty of expression and transparency, and power of warm colouring” (see literature).

In the present painting Mary Magdalene is depicted in a moment of deep spiritual contemplation, her beauty in contrast with the skull she is holding in her hands, suggesting the Vanitas significance of the subject, which Carlo Dolci painted several times during his career.

The hand of the master is recognisable, as Francesca Baldassari has pointed out (see literature), in the conception of the image and in the meticulously rendering of the hair shirt. She has suggested that the present work could had been begun by Dolci and completed by a worthy pupil of his workshop, possibly Onorio Marinari.

Carlo Dolci trained in Jacopo Vignali’s studio and became one of the major artistic personalities of the Florentine seventeenth century, celebrated for his religious subjects and also for his portraits. He worked at the Medici Court for the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere and her son Cosimo III and many of his works were acquired not only by Italian aristocracy but also by important European collectors.