The
original version of Caravaggio’s “Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy,” at least eighteen
copies of which are thought to exist, might be finally identified, according to
the leading expert on the Baroque master.
After years
of arduous quest in search for the real Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy, esteemed scholar and the president of Florence’s
Roberto Longhi Art History Foundation, Mina Gregori, declared that she was confident of making an unerring
verification of the original version after having studied it at length in a
private European collection.
If true,
such discovery would surely yield revolutionary importance in Western Art. The
version that some experts have claimed as the likeliest original is in a
private collection in Rome. Speaking to the Independent, Gregori evaded giving a definite answer as to whether the Rome version was the one she recently authenticated.
The only promise she could guarantee was that, with her dogged pressing of the
entreaty, the owners of the painting would have it available for public display
hopefully in the near future.
So what
proof did Gregori have that the painting was indisputably the authentic
Caravaggio? She listed off several key characteristics of the painting that helped
identify its provenance: “The
creation of a body with varying tones, the intensity of the face. The strong
wrists, crossed fingers and beautiful hair … the wonderful variations in light
and colour.”
Further
discovery of a handwritten note that attached to the back of the 103.5 x 91.5
cm painting bolstered its credibility as an original work. In the note, Cardinale Scipione Borghese of Rome, one of the
important patrons of Caravaggio’s, was named the commissioner of the painting,
which was believed to be conceived in the wake of the artist’s flight from Rome when
he was embroiled in a brawl that resulted in him killing a young man.
It wasn’t
the first time the name and art of Caravaggio have caused such furore in Western
Art. The mystery surrounding the artist is so that some of his paintings have
been frequently misattributed or mislabeled. Sothesby’s was recently sued over
an alleged misattribution of a painting- The
Cardsharps- to a follower of Caravaggio instead of the Italian artist
himself. The family of Lancelot Thwaytes first secured the work for £140 in 1962 and sold it to an auction house five decades later in 2006.
British collector Sir Denis Mahon, after acquiring the painting at the auction for
£42,000, declared it to be an original
and thus should be valued at least 10 million. A hearing of the case will be held
at High Court on this coming Sunday.
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