MATEO CEREZO

(1637 / 1666)

MATEO CEREZO Burgos (1637) / Madrid (1666) "Penitent Magdalene"

Oil on canvas. Provenance: - Madrid, San Jose collection. Bibliography: - Camon Aznar, J., "La pintura española del siglo XVII", in Summa Artis. Historia General del Arte, vol. XXV, p. 475. Mateo Cerezo, "El Joven", was one of the most outstanding painters of Spanish Baroque painting who developed his career in cities such as Burgos, Valladolid and Madrid. Despite his early death, he was a prolific artist with an output that abounds in still lifes and works with religious themes. As Camon Aznar indicated, one of the themes cultivated by Mateo Cerezo with greatest skill was the representation of Saint Mary Magdalene, as a penitent, meditating before a crucifix. There are several autograph copies of this iconography, including the one in the Hague Museum, dated 1661, the Kerni collection, from 1664, the Lazaro Galdiano Museum and the Hermandad del Refugio in Madrid. All of them combine the plastic sensuality of a beautiful woman with mystical rapture, but in this example from the San Jose collection in particular, the painter accentuates its drama through highly contrasted lighting that accentuates its expressiveness. Measurements: 110 x 90 cm.