Penitent Magdalen

The Penitent Magdalen of 1622, in the Musei di Strada Nuova in Genoa, shows Strozzi engaging with one of the most psychologically rich female subjects in Baroque painting: the repentant sinner who was also the most intimate of Christ's female disciples. Mary Magdalene in her penitential mode — weeping, contemplating a skull, her hair unbound — was a figure of enormous emotional resonance in Counter-Reformation devotion, combining the theology of repentance with the aesthetics of beautiful melancholy. Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Georges de La Tour all produced powerful versions. Strozzi's 1622 Genoese treatment brings his warm, characterful approach to a figure usually depicted in states of emotional extremity, giving her both pathos and dignity.

Canvas with concentrated warm light on Magdalene's face and hands — the sites of her emotional expression and her earlier anointing act. The unbound hair falls in rich, carefully painted waves that were themselves an erotic attribute transformed by repentance into an emblem of devotion. The skull or ointment jar anchors the iconography.