St. Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross

Around 1500, still in tempera rather than the oil that was spreading across Europe, an unknown painter set Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross. In devotional pictures she is the figure who clutches the base of the cross itself, kneeling and weeping, kept apart from the Virgin and Saint John who stand higher and more composed. That gesture had become her sign, the repentant follower who loved most openly, and viewers of the time would have known her at a glance by it. The panel's author has not been identified. It survives at the National Museum of Art of Romania as a small, direct object of private prayer, the kind of image made to be knelt in front of rather than admired at a distance.