Simon Vouet - Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalen [c.1627], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
The ointment jar the subject holds in her right hand identifies Simon Vouet’s elegant, sensual courtesan as Mary Magdalene, who washed and anointed Christ’s feet as an act of repentance. Taking his wife, the painter Virginia da Vezzo, as his model, Vouet (French, 1590 – 1649) used painterly and compositional bravura to describe her unrestrained auburn hair as it flows over her broad, curvaceous shoulders and half-exposed bosom. Her subtle smile and sideways gaze create an unusually provocative, seductive image.
[Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 78.74 cm]
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