Guido Reni (1575–1642) e aiuti, Attributed to - Maria Maddalena

Attributed to GUIDO RENI & Aiuti
(Bologna, 1575 – 1642)
Mary Magdalene
Oil on canvas, cm. 69 x 58. 5

NOTE: Publication of the catalogue of works from the Intermidiart collection. Previously auctioned at Christies, 6 October 1961, lot 46 as a work by “Guido Reni”. Certificate of Guarantee and Lawful Provenance. Work without frame:

We thank Prof. Emilio Negro for confirming the attribution hypothesis to Guido Reni & Aiuti (Bologna, 1575 – 1642) on the basis of photographs.
The refined painting offered here depicts an iconographic subject that has been particularly widespread since the Counter-Reformation period as a reflection of the Church’s intention to stimulate devotion to the sacrament of Confession. As is usual in this type of representation, St. Mary Magdalene has long, loose, flowing blond hair and is simply covered by a light-colored cloth and hats, where she holds both hands to her chest, within the neutral space in which the saint is devoutly turned with her eyes to Heaven, her head enveloped in a halo of golden light.
From the point of view of stylistic features, we are faced with a work of evocative beauty executed by a great master active in Bologna in the first half of the seventeenth century, capable of creating an elegantly bright representation of Carracci derivation, tending towards an extremely idealized vision of reality: an artist, in short, inclined towards an ancient classical grace that contained within itself the Christian spirit. The canvas also reproduces a much-repeated composition, each time with chromatic and compositional variations, but not always of a quality comparable to the example analyzed here, which arose from an original executed by Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575 - 1642) . Among the most beautiful known versions of the subject in question, we should at least mention the one made known by the late Stephen Pepper in the monograph on the Bolognese painter (Guido Reni. L’opera completa, Novara, 1988, pp. 268-269, Cat. no. 115, plate 106) , who published it as an autograph by Reni executed in 1628-29 (oil on copper, 66 x 57 cm, Versailles, Musée National des Chateau de Varsailles et de Trianon, deposit (Louvre, Inv. 529) , in analogy with other examples.
The painting in question – already listed at Christies (6 October 1961, lot 46) as a work by “Guido Reni”, and subsequently confirmed as being attributed to Guido Reni in collaboration with his workshop by the Bolognese historian Emilio Negro – is very similar to the one cited by Varsailles not only in terms of composition, but also reveals a similar smoothness of the chromatic thickness, as well as a very similar soft impasto which tends to enhance the classic nature of the content, thus indicating that we are faced with an important recovery by Reni, carried out with the collaboration of his industrious workshop.
A painting with a strong emotional impact that should be placed chronologically in the period of full artistic maturity of the great Bolognese master, in the late 1920s, after a brief stay in Rome, when Reni specialized in the creation of these small paintings for private worship, in which the protagonists were immersed in an empty and rarefied environment, to lead the spectator to concentrate entirely on the devotional aspect of the work.
Guido Reni was the greatest pupil of the Carraccis and one of the greatest artists that Italian art of the seventeenth century can boast. The particular character of classicism that emerges from our Penitent Magdalene is an integral part of the research of the Bolognese master who, already after the departure of Annibale Carracci for the papal capital, had openly and polemically opposed the sentimental and dramatic eloquence of Ludovico, who remained alone at the helm of the artistic panorama of Bologna. The link with a fundamental work for Bologna's artistic culture such as the Ecstasy of St. Cecilia [fig. 36] by Raffaello da Urbino (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) , whose ecstatic gaze is also present in our painting in many of Reni's saints, is then brought closer to the Emilian Mannerist cadences of Correggio and Parmigianino and to the elegant and refined echoes of the culture of Denis Calvaert, the Flemish painter who was Guido's teacher as well as that of many other artists active between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (for example Francesco Albani) : in this regard it will suffice to note in our canvas the use of particular shades with metallic reflections that decidedly recall the teachings of Reni's Nordic teacher.
Regarding its state of conservation, the canvas is in a fair state of conservation. The pictorial surface has a patina. Some scattered restorations and some uncovering and oxidation of the pictorial surface can be seen – under Wood's light. In sunlight, a craquelé related to the period is visible. No conservation problems are evident. The frame may have been replaced at the time of relining. The dimensions of the canvas are cm. 69 x 58. 5. The painting is sold without a frame, even though it is embellished with a beautiful gilded and worked frame.

PROVENANCE: Already Christies auction, 6 October 1961, lot 46 as a work by “Guido Reni”; Sicilian Private Collection

PUBLICATION:
THE MYTHS AND THE TERRITORY in Sicily with a thousand cultures. UNPUBLISHED PAINTINGS general catalog of paintings from the collection of the “Myths and the territory” cycle, Publisher Lab_04, Marsala, 2024.

The work will be shipped - as it is fragile - in a wooden and polystyrene case. In the case of sales outside Italian territory, the buyer will have to wait for the export procedures to be processed.
Please note that shipments may be delayed due to exhibition commitments. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.