Mary Magdalen

In 1572, the year Spanish troops came to besiege Haarlem, the house of the Knights of Saint John in that city drew up an inventory. One line, in old Dutch, lists a panel of Mary Magdalene made by master Jan Scorel. That is this painting, made around 1530, and the entry matters because the name was later lost. The panel moved to the Prinsenhof in Haarlem in 1628, and when the Dutch state passed it to the museum in 1804 it came as the work of an unknown master. The saint sits under a tree holding the jar of ointment she used on Christ's feet. The letters along her neckline look like Hebrew, a nod to her home town of Magdala, though they spell nothing. The rocky peaks behind her recall the cave in Provence where legend says she spent 30 years as a penitent.