A Madalena Penitente

Cagnacci painted this large, crowded scene in the early 1660s, near the end of his life, while he was working for the Habsburg court in Vienna. The subject is Mary Magdalene's turning point. She lies half-undressed on the floor, having just torn off her jewels and fine clothes, while her sister Martha leans over her, arguing her toward a new life. He stages it almost as theatre, and above the two women an angel drives a dark devil back out through the door, virtue chasing vice in plain sight. Cagnacci was proud of the invention. Instead of the usual painted by, he signed the canvas as its inventor, Guidus Cagnaccius Inventor. It hangs today in the Norton Simon Museum near Los Angeles.