悔悛するマグダラのマリア

The original of this picture became one of the most copied paintings in 17th-century Seville, and this canvas in the cathedral is one of those copies. Artemisia Gentileschi painted the Magdalene around 1625 for the Duke of Alcalá, Spain's ambassador in Rome, who carried it home to his Seville palace, where local artists came to study and reproduce it. Then the original disappeared for centuries, known only through copies like this one, until it turned up at a French auction in 2001 and was finally bought by a Texas museum in 2024. Set side by side, the differences show the copyist's hand: a tasselled curtain hardens into an odd wooden shape, and the pewter jar and mirror on the table sink away into the dark. The pose, a woman turning from her jewels toward heaven, is faithfully kept.