LANFRANCO, GIOVANNI

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN

Today there is no doubt about the fact that this picture in the Pushkin Museum is the one painted by Lanfranco commissioned by Cardinal Montalto c. 1616-1617. A similar fresco is found on the painted ceiling of the Oratorio dei Nobili painted by Lanfranco in the Church of Jesù Nuovo in Naples. A number of repeated variants of the Moscow picture are known to exist and one of these is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. A preliminary sketch for the picture is held in Leipzig's Kupferstichkabinett (Graphic Collection).

Provenance: acquired from the Croz collection (Paris) for the Hermitage in 1773; in the Pushkin Museum since 1925.