Noli me tangere

Fra Bartolomeo painted this Noli Me Tangere around 1506, now at the Louvre, depicting the risen Christ's encounter with Mary Magdalene when she mistook him for the gardener. The subject — Christ's refusal to be touched, his injunction to go and tell the disciples of his resurrection — was a meditation on the threshold between physical presence and spiritual reality. Fra Bartolomeo's treatment employs his characteristic harmonious figure arrangement and luminous landscape setting, the two figures in graceful interaction against an Umbrian-style hill landscape. The Louvre provenance reflects French collecting of major Italian altarpieces during the 18th-19th centuries, when diplomatic and commercial networks brought important Italian works to Paris.

Oil on panel with Fra Bartolomeo's characteristic soft atmospheric modeling and monumental figure treatment. The work demonstrates the artistic qualities characteristic of Fra Bartolomeo's mature period.