Simon Vouet
Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalencirca 1627

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting portrait of a young woman from the waist up, auburn braids over her chest, off-shoulder white blouse and blue drapery, holding a small silver lidded vessel against a dark landscape

Artist or Maker: Simon Vouet
France, Paris, 1590-1649
Title: Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalen
Date Made: circa 1627
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 40 × 31 in. (101.6 × 78.7 cm) Framed: 51 × 42 1/2 × 4 in. (129.54 × 107.95 × 10.16 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation
Accession Number: M.83.201
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: A woman poses before a rocky landscape, her long hair partially concealing her bare shoulders and breasts as she looks coquettishly at the beholder from the corner of her eyes. The only iconographic clue to her identity is the small ointment jar in her right hand, traditionally associated with Mary Magdalen, the first among Christ’s followers to witness his resurrection. During the seventeenth century, the Magdalen was a popular subject for painting in France and Italy, as she served as an accessible example of penance—someone who had sinned and been forgiven by Christ. The subject was especially popular in the intensely religious France of Louis XIII, who brought the painter Simon Vouet back from Italy, where he was studying, to Paris in 1627, conferring on him the official title of First Painter to the King. Precisely at the time of Vouet’s return, the Magdalen’s role and relationship to Christ had been reviewed in important publications.

Vouet painted the penitent Magdalen alone in the wilderness several times, yet this canvas is different from his other renditions and from those of his contemporaries, such as Georges de La Tour (M.77.73), who often portrayed the saintly figure fixing her gaze on a crucifix or looking toward heavenly light. Here, she does not appear as the prostitute living in luxury before her conversion, nor as the penitent sinner who retreated to the wilderness. Rather, she is depicted as sensual and seductive. Her fingers play with her hair, perhaps alluding to how it will be sacrificed as a result of her spiritual awakening. The model was, in fact, Vouet’s wife, Virginia da Vezzo (1606–1638), a fellow painter whom he met in Rome in 1612. This painting was likely intended for the artist himself to commemorate his marriage to Virginia.

2024
Provenance: (Possibly sale, London, Foster, 15 Nov. 1836, "Portrait of a Lady of Quality in the figure of a Magdalen," sold for £1.3 to);(1) Golding. "Alderman" T. Holroyd, ca. 1860.(2) Unidentified religious institution, England (sale, Lancaster).(3) London art market, 1982. [Trafalgar Galleries, London, sold 1983 to]; LACMA.

Footnotes

(1) Although the sale price is remarkably low, LACMA’s painting is the only known portrait like Mary Magdalen by Vouet. The location of the sale in London twenty-four years before it was known to be in Holroyd’s London collection further suggests that the reference may be to this painting.

(2) According to a letter dated 11 November 1983 from R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries: "When the painting first came to us it bore a large gilt plaque inscribed: "Presented by Alderman T. Holroyd. The plaque has been mislaid . . . but must, I suppose, have been datable around 1860–80." Vouet object file, Department of European Painting and Sculpture, LACMA.

(3) According to a letter dated 9 November 1983 from R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries: "The picture was originally acquired in an auction in a small town in Lancashire and we understand that it had previously belonged to a religious institution for at least a hundred years. It was later acquired by a dealer friend of ours who approached us about it." Vouet object file, Department of European Painting and Sculpture, LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Schaefer, Scott, and Peter Fusco. European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: an Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987.
Conisbee, Philip et al. The Ahmanson Gifts: European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection. Stuttgart: Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei, 2010.
Marandel, J. Patrice. Abecedario: Collecting and Recollecting. Los Angeles: Art Catalogues; LACMA, 2017.
Van der Stighelen, Katlijne. Michaelina Wautier, 1604-1689: Glorifying a Forgotten Talent. Kontich: BAI Publishers, 2018.
Lehmbeck, Leah, editor. Gifts of European Art from The Ahmanson Foundation. Vol. 2, French Painting and Sculpture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.
Straussman-Pflanzer, Eve, and Oliver Tostmann, eds. By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500-1800. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 2021.

Related Unframed

Simon Vouet
Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalencirca 1627

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Simon Vouet
France, Paris, 1590-1649
Title: Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalen
Date Made: circa 1627
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 40 × 31 in. (101.6 × 78.7 cm) Framed: 51 × 42 1/2 × 4 in. (129.54 × 107.95 × 10.16 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation
Accession Number: M.83.201
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: A woman poses before a rocky landscape, her long hair partially concealing her bare shoulders and breasts as she looks coquettishly at the beholder from the corner of her eyes. The only iconographic clue to her identity is the small ointment jar in her right hand, traditionally associated with Mary Magdalen, the first among Christ’s followers to witness his resurrection. During the seventeenth century, the Magdalen was a popular subject for painting in France and Italy, as she served as an accessible example of penance—someone who had sinned and been forgiven by Christ. The subject was especially popular in the intensely religious France of Louis XIII, who brought the painter Simon Vouet back from Italy, where he was studying, to Paris in 1627, conferring on him the official title of First Painter to the King. Precisely at the time of Vouet’s return, the Magdalen’s role and relationship to Christ had been reviewed in important publications.

Vouet painted the penitent Magdalen alone in the wilderness several times, yet this canvas is different from his other renditions and from those of his contemporaries, such as Georges de La Tour (M.77.73), who often portrayed the saintly figure fixing her gaze on a crucifix or looking toward heavenly light. Here, she does not appear as the prostitute living in luxury before her conversion, nor as the penitent sinner who retreated to the wilderness. Rather, she is depicted as sensual and seductive. Her fingers play with her hair, perhaps alluding to how it will be sacrificed as a result of her spiritual awakening. The model was, in fact, Vouet’s wife, Virginia da Vezzo (1606–1638), a fellow painter whom he met in Rome in 1612. This painting was likely intended for the artist himself to commemorate his marriage to Virginia.

2024
Provenance: (Possibly sale, London, Foster, 15 Nov. 1836, "Portrait of a Lady of Quality in the figure of a Magdalen," sold for £1.3 to);(1) Golding. "Alderman" T. Holroyd, ca. 1860.(2) Unidentified religious institution, England (sale, Lancaster).(3) London art market, 1982. [Trafalgar Galleries, London, sold 1983 to]; LACMA.

Footnotes

(1) Although the sale price is remarkably low, LACMA’s painting is the only known portrait like Mary Magdalen by Vouet. The location of the sale in London twenty-four years before it was known to be in Holroyd’s London collection further suggests that the reference may be to this painting.

(2) According to a letter dated 11 November 1983 from R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries: "When the painting first came to us it bore a large gilt plaque inscribed: "Presented by Alderman T. Holroyd. The plaque has been mislaid . . . but must, I suppose, have been datable around 1860–80." Vouet object file, Department of European Painting and Sculpture, LACMA.

(3) According to a letter dated 9 November 1983 from R. Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries: "The picture was originally acquired in an auction in a small town in Lancashire and we understand that it had previously belonged to a religious institution for at least a hundred years. It was later acquired by a dealer friend of ours who approached us about it." Vouet object file, Department of European Painting and Sculpture, LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Schaefer, Scott, and Peter Fusco. European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: an Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987.
Conisbee, Philip et al. The Ahmanson Gifts: European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection. Stuttgart: Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei, 2010.
Marandel, J. Patrice. Abecedario: Collecting and Recollecting. Los Angeles: Art Catalogues; LACMA, 2017.
Van der Stighelen, Katlijne. Michaelina Wautier, 1604-1689: Glorifying a Forgotten Talent. Kontich: BAI Publishers, 2018.
Lehmbeck, Leah, editor. Gifts of European Art from The Ahmanson Foundation. Vol. 2, French Painting and Sculpture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.
Straussman-Pflanzer, Eve, and Oliver Tostmann, eds. By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500-1800. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 2021.

Related Unframed

New Acquisition: Virginia Vezzi’s “Self-Portrait as St. Catherine of Alexandria”

April 28, 2025
Leah Lehmbeck

What Is Going to Rome? Moving Artwork for a Permanent Collection Exhibition

June 13, 2018
Leah Lehmbeck