Ambrosius Benson executed this exquisitely refined depiction of Saint Mary Magdalene around 1532, when such rarefied images enjoyed great popularity. Marrying northern Italian artistic sensibilities with the precision and delicacy of Netherlandish art, the painting typifies Benson’s rare ability to fuse his roots in Lombardy with the elite courtly taste of Bruges, where he spent his career.

Wearing a wine-colored velvet gown with crimson sleeves and lynx fur, the Magdalene is more sophisticated grand dame than penitent saint. The elegant figure derives from the sibyl at lower right in Benson’s Deipara Virgo (fig. 1), which the artist often repurposed, recasting her as either a stand-alone sibyl or saint. In his compendium of Netherlandish painting, Max Friedländer listed nine versions (including the present work) of the Magdalene. Across these compositions, Benson varies the saint’s dress, physiognomy, and attributes, depicting her alternatively holding an ointment jar or prayer book. In Georges Marlier’s 1957 monograph on Benson, he noted particular affinities between the present painting and two other versions: one formerly in the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; another formerly in the collection of James Sotheby of Ecton Hall, Northamptonshire.¹

Saint Mary Magdalene Reading an Illuminated Manuscript is distinguished by its exceptional quality of execution. Benson lavished particular attention on two passages: the gold brooch affixed to the saint’s costume and the ornate illuminated manuscript decorated with a Flemish “scatter” border. Unique to this version, the jeweled ornament features a fleur-de-lys set with white pearls, suggesting that the work’s patron enjoyed a special association with France. With goffered, or gilded, edges, the book of hours features an assortment of botanical motifs, among them a small white and yellow flower that may be a strawberry. The object’s verisimilitude serves almost as an invitation for the viewer to contemplate the painting with the same intensity as the saint attends to her daily prayers.

¹ The former sold Sotheby’s, London, 10 July 2002, lot 9; the latter sold Christie’s, London, 4 July 1997, lot 29.