This painting depicts Mary Magdalene penitent in the cave. The saint, partially bare, her hair covered with a veil held by a diadem on her head, looks at the crucifix, her face expressing both sadness and hope.
Dressed in a transparent veil, she restrains with her left arm a cloth which envelops the lower part of her body. It is accompanied by its attributes: the crucifix helping to pray, the book open to meditate the sacred texts, the vase with the perfumes that it spread on the feet of Jesus.
The contrast is disturbing between the face with the idealized features of the young woman, its radiant beauty and the dark atmosphere of the cave, the suffering of Christ crucified.

Oil on oak panel in parquet, surrounded by Michiel Coxcie, Flemish school of the sixteenth century.

Dimensions: h. 64 cm, l. 54 cm, with frame: h. 87 cm, l. 75cm.

This painting is similar to that of Marie Madeleine Penitente, which is preserved in the National Museum of Warsaw, Poland, surrounded by Michiel Coxcie, and another, from an old collection of The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford ), Also surrounded by Michiel Coxcie.

Michiel Coxcie, Mechelen 1499? - 1592 Mechelen. Painter, draftsman, inventor of engravings, creator of models for stained-glass windows and tapestries, Coxcie is the heir of the italianizing style of Van Orley. Known by the nickname of the Raphael of the North, Coxcie was one of the first painters of the North of Europe to be interested in the Italian Renaissance. He left for Rome probably around 1529-1530; During his nine year stay, he was the first Nordic artist to be commissioned to paint frescoes. In 1534, he was admitted to the Academy of St. Luke of Rome. He deepened his knowledge of Antiquity and the art of the great masters of the Renaissance Raphael, Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Back in his country, he introduced the stylistic elements of the Italian Renaissance; It is an artistic revolution for Flemish painting. He was one of the favorite painters of Charles V. and quickly rose to the rank of painter at the court of his son Philip II. He drew altarpieces, stained glass and wall tapestries for sponsors from Brussels, Antwerp and Mechelen. Coxcie's contemporaries were inspired by his innovative style and compositions, and even after his death, his work attracted the admiration of artists like Rubens. With a particularly long life, which begins at the end of the 15th century and ends on the threshold of the 17th century, Michiel Coxcie constitutes an exceptional artistic link between the Flemish Primitives and the Baroque.