Onorio Marinari

Anonymous sale, New Orleans, Morton M. Goldberg Auction Galleries, 31 August 1992, lot 2002 (as Dutch School, 18th Century);

Where acquired by Stanley Moss.

F. Baldassari, La pittura del Seicento a Firenze. Indice degli artisti e delle loro opere, Torino 2009, p. 508, reproduced fig. 294;

S. Benassai, Onorio Marinari: Pittore Nella Firenze Degli Ultimi Medici, Florence 2011, p. 172, cat. no. 103, reproduced.

This intensely direct Mary Magdalene in old age is a sharp departure from the usual depiction of the saint in Florentine Baroque art. Marinari, like his cousin and master, Carlo Dolci, usually depicted the Magdalene contemplating a skull, but as a young woman. In this painting, she is shown much older, and looking out at the viewer in a manner that suggests, as has been posited by Silvia Benassi, that this canvas is likely a portrait of a sitter in the guise of the saint. Benassi considers it a late work of the artist, comparing it to Marinari’s Self Portrait of 1709 (Corridoio Vasariano, Florence, inv. 1890, no.1732; a second version in the Koelliker collection Milan, see op. cit. pp. 170-171, cat. nos. 101 and 102, both reproduced) as well as the Portrait of Giuseppe Maria Salvetti, (Fondazione Cavallini Sgarbi, Ferrara, op. cit., p. 173, cat. no. 104, reproduced).