JAN SYMONSZ. PYNAS | Mary Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the cross

A. Brantjes, Vught, 1960;

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 7 May 1996, lot 33, where acquired.

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al, At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 115, cat. no. 120, reproduced in colour;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 4, Historien und Allegorien, Münster/Hamburg/London 2010, pp. 350-54, cat. no. 59, reproduced in colour.

When this painting appeared on the market in 1996 it constituted a significant addition to the œuvre of Jan Symonsz. Pynas. The striking composition and subject are very unusual in early Dutch 17th-century painting, though not at all unfamiliar in the art of the Italian High Renaissance. 

The figure of the Magdalene here is repeated from Pynas' earliest dated work of 1605 - The Raising of Lazarus, in the Museum of Aschaffenburg.¹ In depicting her at the foot of the cross, Pynas was the first of the Pre-Rembrandtists to address this theme, which Pieter Lastman (Rembrandt's teacher), would also take up in 1615.

1 https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/en/artist/jan-simonsz-pynas/die-auferweckung-des-lazarus