17th Century French School, Portrait of a Lady as the Magdalene

17th Century French School
Portrait of an aristocratic lady as the Magdalene
Oil on canvas, framed
57.75 x 48.5 cm. /22 ¾ by 19 ins
The frame 79 by 71 cm. / 31 by 28 ins

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, UK, until 2021

This painting is part of a tradition of allegorical portraits popular in France in the second half of the seventeenth century, which present royal or aristocratic ladies and gentlemen in the guise of Christian saints or Graeco-Roman gods or historical figures. Such portraits appealed to the morality and erudition – as well as, presumably, to the vanity – of their aristocratic sitters, who wished to be associated with the virtues or deeds of their chosen subjects and to be portrayed in eye-catching costume.

The composition of the present painting derives from an allegorical portrait of Marie-Elizabeth (Isabelle) de Ludres (1647-1721), an aristocrat from Lorraine and one of Louis XIV’s mistresses, here shown in the guise of the Penitent Magdalene. That portrait, now in Versailles (Musée national du Château, inv. MV8927), also shows the sitter holding a gold ointment jar and a similar background to the sitter’s right, consisting of a curving rocky grotto with a landscape beyond, but with a different pose, dress and attributes (a skull, rather than a book, at the bottom left) to the present portrait.[1]

The Versailles portrait was previously considered to be from the workshop of Pierre Mignard, but is now attributed to Jean Nocret (c.1615-1672), a notable portrait painter at the court of Louis XIV. Indeed, other female portraits by Jean Nocret, such as his Portrait of Henriette d’Angleterre as Pallas (Royal Collection, RCIN 405910) can also be compared in terms of the sitter’s facial type and direct gaze, as well as the colour palette and the dark background contrasting with the bright drapery.[2]

This leads to the conclusion that the present portrait was executed by a French artist active in the late seventeenth century, who took as his inspiration Nocret’s Madame de Ludres, but was likely commissioned to paint this portrait for another French aristocratic lady, who wished to be portrayed as the Magdalene.