Large Painting Antique Portrait Lady Mignard Xvii Century Oil on Canvas France

  
The peculiarity of the portrait, probably executed after her return to her homeland, is that the noblewoman takes on the features of a fascinating Mary Magdalene, represented here following her renunciation of earthly goods, her rich clothes and her jewels, to aspire to heavenly riches; we see her immortalized with her long hair loose on one breast, her intriguing but serene gaze directed at the observer, while she rests her hands crossed, as if in prayer, on the ampoule of perfumed ointments and on the open book, both iconographic symbols. The elegant ease of touch and the sensual sophistication typical of Mignard, combined with a very accurate chiaroscuro rendering, inherited from his artistic training in Rome (which looks to the examples of Ferdinad Voet), and the exceptional sweetness.