The Penitent Magdalen

In his Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni (1730), the Perugian abbot, art historian and collector Lione Pascoli (1674-1744) described two pictures by Cignani ‘made for the Prince of Schaumburg, the one representing the Magdalene in the desert, and the other the Magdalen and Martha her sister’ (due ne fece pel principe di Schlevemburgo, rappresentante l’uno la Maddalena nel deserto, e l’altro la Maddalena con Marta sua sorella’, op.cit.). The former of these was identified as the present picture for the first time in 1987, still in the possession of the patron’s family. Following the death of his father in 1681, Count Friedrich Christian zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1655-1728) spent several years in Italy, where he acquired a number of paintings in Rome, Bologna and Reggio Emilia. He mostly collected works by contemporary artists like as Carlo Maratti and Giuseppe Chiari in Rome, and Cignani and Lorenzo Pasinelli in Bologna, though is also known to have acquired paintings by earlier masters, including Ludvico Carracci.
The Penitent Magdalen is a sensitively painted example of Cignani’s mature style, when he was established as one of Bologna’s leading painters of the mid to late-seventeenth century. The elegantly posed hands, loosely joined and resting on the Magdelen’s traditional attribute of penitence, a skull, recall the graceful, unguarded pose of Cignani’s Flora painted in circa 1681 (Modena, Galleria Estense). In the smooth modelling of the oval face, cast in deep shadow, and framed by the saint’s hair, the Magdalen shows the influence of Correggio, a painter to whom Cignani was often compared during his lifetime.