Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene, dated around 1849 and held at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, shows Daumier engaging with the New Testament figure who was among the most extensively depicted women in Western art history. The Magdalene's iconographic tradition ranged from the penitent beauty of Renaissance and Baroque painting through the suffering figure of Counter-Reformation devotion, and Daumier's approach to the subject necessarily engaged with these accumulated meanings. His treatment, consistent with his humanistic approach to religious subjects, tends toward the figure as a specific human presence rather than a theological symbol. The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, which focuses on Western art from the medieval period to the twentieth century, holds important works of French nineteenth-century painting. The 1849 date places this canvas near the beginning of Daumier's sustained engagement with oil painting subjects, at a moment of political upheaval in France that may have sharpened his interest in figures of suffering and grace.

The Magdalene subject allows Daumier to work with a solitary female figure in an attitude of meditation or grief. His handling emphasizes the emotional state through posture and the quality of light rather than detailed facial expression, using broad tonal passages to create atmosphere.