Artwork · 17th century · Georges de La Tour

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The Penitent Magdalen

Georges de La Tourca. 1640Oil on canvas133.4 × 102.2 cm

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At a glance

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In a dark room, Mary Magdalene sits with a skull in her lap and gazes silently at a candle in front of a mirror.
Georges de La Tour, a painter from Lorraine in what is now eastern France, painted it in oil on canvas around 1640.
The only light is one candle. That single flame picks out her face, her hands, the skull, and the pearls, one after another.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the mirror. There is only one candle in the holder, but there are two flames. One is the real candle, and the other is its reflection in the glass. The mirror has a fancy gilded frame, yet it reflects nothing but the candle.
Zoom in on her lap. Her fingers are laced together and rest quietly on top of a skull. The round top of the skull and the edge of its eye socket shine in the candlelight. A skull is an object meant to remind us that every life comes to an end.
Zoom in on her face. We see her only in profile, and her expression is hard to read. The cheek and chin facing the candle glow, while her long hair sinks into the dark.
Look at the far right end of the table. A pearl necklace lies there, twisted into loops and dropped carelessly. These are jewels she once wore and has now taken off.
Drop down to the floor. In the shadows, a twisted cord and a few glinting pieces of jewelry lie scattered. It is a spot most people miss the first time they look.

When it was painted

Around 1640 La Tour was in his late forties, and his world had been shaken. Two years earlier, French troops had set fire to Lunéville, his town in Lorraine. He spent time in Paris, where he gained the title of painter to the King of France, and then went back to Lunéville to keep working.

His son Étienne was with him in the workshop by now, learning the trade and painting alongside his father. In these years La Tour made many quiet night scenes lit by a single flame.

Mary Magdalene was a subject he came back to again and again. Besides this one, his candlelit Magdalenes hang in the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Because of the second flame in the mirror, this version is often called the Magdalen with Two Flames.

The painter's own life was less peaceful than his pictures. In these years people in Lunéville complained that he kept a pack of hunting dogs and let them trample their fields.

La Tour died in Lunéville in 1652, only weeks after his wife. This painting came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1978 as a gift from Charles and Jayne Wrightsman.

Look at the mirror once more. Beside the real flame burns a second one, made only of reflected light. Which of the two is Mary really looking at?

The painter

Georges de La Tour

1593–1652

All paintings by Georges de La Tour →

More by the same painter

The Fortune-Tellerprobably 1630s

Questions to think about

Look for itJust to the right of the skull, on the table, can you find a small piece of jewelry?
Why?Why do you think La Tour showed Mary only from the side, instead of turning her face toward us?
What about you?Mary has put her jewels down on the floor. Is there something in your life, like your phone, that you would like to set down for a while to clear your head?

Same period