Saint Mary Magdalene, with an Angel [left panel]

This painting belongs to a triptych, which also includes Madonna and Child, with the Blessing Christ [middle panel] and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with an Angel [right panel]. The figure depicted here can be identified as Saint Mary Magdalene by the cylindrical vessel of ointment in her hand. In 14th-century Tuscan art, the ointment jar typically refers to the gospel story of the repentant women who anointed Christ's feet at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Mary is also one of the three women who went to Christ's tomb after the Sabbath to anoint his body and was the first witness to Christ's resurrection.

An inscription, which survives on a fragment of the original frame (now incorporated in a modern support and located beneath the triptych's central panel of Madonna and Child, with the Blessing Christ [middle panel]), records the artist's signature: Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena painted me in 1340. Pietro and his brother Ambrogio are often noted for the inventive ways in which they defined three-dimensional space and incorporated details from everyday life to expand the realism of their figures and settings. However, they also painted icon-like devotional pictures, such as this one. During this period, Pietro seems to have been especially influenced by Giotto (Florentine, c. 1265 - 1337), as seen in the quiet solemnity of the composition, in which a massive figure fills nearly the entire panel. The figure’s clothing also typifies Giotto's style: heavy fabrics fall perpendicularly in a few simplified or pointed folds to emphasize the figure's solidity.

Credit: Gift of Frieda Schiff Warburg in memory of her husband, Felix M. Warburg