Engraved: Raphael Morghen, 1801, for a Mr. Day in Florence. The engraving was commenced in 1787. (2)

2) C. B. Curtis, Velazquez and Murillo. A description and historical catalogue of the works, New York 1883, lists a number of engravings taken from the R. Morghen, 1801, proving that this painting was a very popular and well-known image.


This Penitent Magdalen is one of the most important works by Murillo to be discovered in recent years. Murillo signed rather few of his works during his lifetime and most of those that are signed were painted during the early stages of his career, before he became Seville’s most famous painter.
The iconographic theme of the penitent Magdalen was a key element of Catholic devotion during the Counter Reformation period that commenced with the Council of Trent in 1563. Representations of penitent saints were extremely common throughout Europe, but especially so in Spain and Italy. Mary Magdalen symbolises a person who, after a period of debauchery and sin, repents and takes refuge in religion, pursuing, above all, a life of prayer and penitence.
Murillo’s works executed c. 1650 are tenebrous and also show a strong use of chiaroscuro. Thus, he experimented with a Sevillian form of Caravaggism, which he probably derived from knowledge of Jusepe Ribera. At the same time the intensity of expression and devotion evident in these compositions was almost certainly due to knowledge of early Guido Reni. Several works by Reni once hung in Seville cathedral and his engravings were widely circulated.


The most popular of Spanish artists in the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly because of the appeal of his beautiful and sentimental Virgins, Murillo's reputation suffered until relatively recently precisely because of a reaction against the very qualities admired in the Victorian era. Happily, modern scholarship and a succession of exhibitions of Spanish seventeenth century art have demonstrated that Murillo was far more complex, ranging from the moving Madrid Saint Jerome (Museo del Prado), through the realism of his portraits of street urchins (Paris, Louvre, London, Dulwich Gallery, Vienna, Academy, and Munich, Alte Pinakothek), the complex allegory of the senses in the Kimbell, the emotive portrayal of Saint Francis embracing the Crucified Christ (Seville, Museo de Bellas Artes) and a handful of austere portraits that he seems to have painted through his life. Murillo's early career is well-documented. Born in Seville, where he spent the majority of his life, he studied first with a local artist, Juan del Castillo, and would have been familiar with the Venetian and Flemish paintings that could be seen in both ecclesiastical buildings and a handful of aristocratic collections. His artistic education proceeded with only limited exposure to concurrent artistic developments but, nonetheless, his extraordinary facility with the brush and technical skills brought him considerable success.