The Penitent Magdalen
by GUERCINO, Oil on canvas, 230 x 177 cm
This canvas is one of a series of five life-size paintings of saints commissioned by Cardinal Fabrizio Savelli, appointed Papal Legate in Bologna, in 1649. The five pictures in the series are all vertical and of very similar dimensions, they include representations of Sts Francis, Jerome, James the Greater, and John the Baptist.