Guido Cagnacci - Mary Magdalene fainted

• Title: Mary Magdalene fainted (Maddalena svenuta)
• Artist: Guido Cagnacci (1601-1663)
• Date: 1627
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 86 x 72 cm

Cagnacci shows here his precocious passion for the often languid and seductive representation of female figures. That of Magdalene is actually part of a centuries-old iconographic tradition. The woman, taking refuge in a cave in Provence, renounces worldly pleasures and leads a hermit's life. Beside her she holds the cross, the jar of nard with which she anointed Christ's feet at the Supper of Bethany and, in her hands, the skull of the memento mori and the scourge with which she punishes her own flesh.

The saint's fainting may not just be mystical ecstasy. Instead the painter suggests with the position of the skull, the posture of her reclined body, the loose hair and the luscious body that Mary Magdalene might have experienced sexual ecstasy.