Saint Mary Magdalene

Pronounced by Friedländer to be by one of the most successful and popular artists working in Antwerp in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, the group of works traditionally given to The Master of the Female Half-Lengths are now perceived to be in large part the product of a workshop, specializing particularly in half-length depictions of the Magdalene and elegantly dressed young ladies. Friedländer records a group of pictures of this type, for example that in Louvre, Paris, all with substantial variations in composition or background decoration, but invariably showing the Magdalene in a richly illumined manuscript book of hours, in prayerful meditation, an ointment jar. Friedländer suggests that a dispersed international market existed for such intimate glimpses into the private world of elegant young ladies in quiet reverie - there eyes never meeting those of the viewer (see M.J. Friedlnder, Early Netherlandish Painting, XII, Jan van Scorel and Pieter Coeck van Aelst, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, pp. 19-20, pl. 42, figs. 85-90).