Appearance of Jesus Christ to Maria Magdalena

Ivanov painted this in Rome in 1835, on a stipend from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists back in St Petersburg, who expected proof their money was being well spent. It was, in a sense, a warm-up. Around those same years he had begun the enormous canvas that would occupy him for the next two decades, The Appearance of Christ to the People. This smaller scene shows the single moment when Mary Magdalene, weeping at the empty tomb, turns and recognises the risen Christ. When the finished picture reached the Russian capital in 1836 it was shown at the Academy of Arts to real acclaim. Ivanov was made an academician, and the Society handed the painting to Tsar Nicholas I. The clear Italian light in it comes from the years he spent studying Raphael and the Venetians.