_Later School of Roger van der Weyden_ (Early Flemish:
1400-about 1464). _See_ 664.
_See also_ (p. xix)
Known for the Magdalen by the small vase at her feet--emblem, in all
the religious painters, of the alabaster box of ointment--"the symbol
at once of her conversion and her love." In these "reading Magdalens"
she is represented as now reconciled to heaven, and magnificently
attired--in reference to her former state of worldly prosperity.
"It is difficult for us, in these days, to conceive the passionate
admiration and devotion with which the Magdalen was regarded by her
votaries in the Middle Ages. The imputed sinfulness of her life only
brought her nearer to them. Those who did not dare to lift up their
eyes to the more saintly models of purity and holiness,--the martyrs
who had suffered in the cause of chastity,--took courage to invoke
her intercession" (Mrs. Jameson: _Sacred and Legendary Art_, p. 205).
Hence the numerous Magdalens to be met with in nearly every picture
gallery; in art decidedly there has been "more joy over one sinner that
repenteth than over ninety-and-nine that need no repentance."
"This picture is undoubtedly by the unknown master who painted two
remarkable panels formerly in the Abbey of Flémalle in Belgium, but now
in the Städel Museum at Frankfort-on-Maine. They present respectively
the standing figure of the Virgin with the Infant at her breast, and
the figure of St. Veronica, as an elderly woman, holding before her
the sacred napkin on which is the impression of our Lord's visage.
These, and a third panel in the same museum, representing the Trinity,
but, unlike the others, painted in monochrome, must have belonged to a
large altar-piece in many compartments, of which it is quite possible
the small picture above described may have formed one" (_Official
Catalogue_). Mr. Claude Phillips, on the other hand, while admiring
the delicate and exquisite colour of our picture and the enamel-like
quality of its surface, sees in it no resemblance to the works
described above (see _Academy_, Sept. 28, 1889).