The Magdalen

This saint is dressed like a wealthy woman at the Saxon court, in slashed sleeves, gold chains and a broad feathered hat, and only the small covered jar in her hands tells you who she is. The jar is Mary Magdalene's usual attribute, the ointment the Gospels say she used to anoint Christ. Cranach painted her around 1525, just as Luther and the reformers around him were arguing against the veneration of saints and holy images, which makes a richly devotional picture like this a pointed thing to be producing. Behind the seated figure he set a smaller scene from her legend, the Magdalene borne up into the sky by angels after years of penance alone in the wilderness.