Mary Magdalene

Author: Klazina Botke

Although Pordenone only ever worked in Northern Italy, according to Cohen (1980) his drawings reveal that he was very familiar with work by Central Italian artists, Michelangelo (1475-1564) among them.^[1] The use of red chalk in his early drawings may be evidence that he followed these masters. We know of only a few black chalk drawings by him, including this study of a young woman – identifiable as Mary Magdalene by the jar of ointment lower left. Pordenone pictured her with flowing hair in a graceful pose and emphasized movement through the billowing fabric of her cloak. The artist was obviously more interested in an appealing image of a young woman, accentuated by eye contact and sensual gestures, than a true-to-life anatomical depiction. Here he clearly deviated from his examples in Central Italy.^[2] He also played in an inventive way with the effect of light and shade. As well as white highlights, he used the paper itself for light areas. This is evident in the face, the neck and the arms, where a sense of light was achieved by leaving the paper in those areas blank. These light passages contrast with the strongly indicated outlines and shadows created with hatching.^[3] The drawing is often compared with the study for The Annunciation in Windsor, one of the few black chalk drawings by Pordenone with the same subtle gradations in the modelling.^[4]

Although most of Pordenone’s figure studies can be related to an existing painting, this is not true of ours.^[5] Fiocco (1935) saw a certain resemblance to the Mary Magdalene in the Noli me tangere, an altarpiece painted around 1534 for the Santa Maria chapel dedicated to the saint in Cividale del Friuli.^[6] More convincing is Cohen’s suggestion (1980 and 1996) that the drawing may be a preliminary study for the Mary Magdalene in the chapel dedicated to St Catherine in the Santa Maria di Campagna in Piacenza, painted around 1530-32. The elegant pose, the expressionless face and the long, tapering fingers correspond, as does the delicate ointment jar with its narrow foot.^[7] Luijten (1990) conjectured that the same model may have been the basis for the depictions of the sybils in the dome of this church and for the figure of St Catherine in scenes from her life.^[8]

This means that the drawing is not a direct preliminary study for one of these decorations but may well be a prima idea, thus giving us an idea of Pordenone’s working method. We can see that he was still searching for the right form and pose from the pentimenti in the Magdalene’s right arm. The back of the sheet in line with the drawing has been blackened with charcoal and the drawing itself has been indented to enable transfer to and further working out on a different support. Contrary to what Luijten (1990) suspected, the drawing was probably not trimmed at the bottom. We can instead see a balanced composition in which the position of the ointment jar on a horizontal surface is a logical place in a three-quarter-length image.