Die büßende Magdalena

El Greco signed this in Greek around 1577, just after he arrived in Spain and settled in Toledo. He had spent years in Venice before that, and Titian's warmth is still all over the canvas, in the golden hair and the soft light on the sky. Mary Magdalene is shown as a penitent in the wilderness, having left her old life behind. Beside her El Greco sets the standard signs of that story, a skull to mark death, a jar of ointment for the oils she brought to Christ's tomb, and ivy above her as an emblem of everlasting life. It is an early Spanish work by a painter still carrying Italy with him, before his later figures stretched into the tall, flamelike forms of his Toledo altarpieces.