Magdalene in Meditation

A woman kneels, a skull cradled in one hand, her forehead resting on the other, and around her lie an open book, brushes, a small antique statue, an hourglass, a celestial globe, a dog. Fetti painted this about 1618, and almost every one of those objects comes straight out of Albrecht Durer's engraving of Melancholy, made just over a century earlier, in 1514. Durer meant the restless sadness of the learned mind, ringed by the tools of a knowledge it can no longer enjoy. Fetti keeps the props and turns their meaning around: set the books and instruments aside and turn to prayer. Long called the penitent Magdalene, the figure is really an allegory of meditation. On the crumbling wall behind her a vine takes hold, the old image of Christ as the true vine.