Mary Magdalene by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys. c.1859. Oil on wood panel. 13¼ x 11 inches (33.7 X 27.9 cm). Collection of Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, object no. 1935-31, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935. Image courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Who was Mary Magdalene?
Sandys exhibited Mary Magdalene at the annual Spring Exhibition of the British Institution in 1860, no. 467, and then later at Ernest Gambart's French Gallery Annual Winter Exhibition of British Artists, 1865-66, no. 84. The subject was one favoured by the Old Masters from the Renaissance onwards. The Magdalen is usually portrayed carrying the ointment jar used to anoint Christ's feet and shown with her long free-flowing hair, emblematic of her sensuality, that she will use to wipe Christ's feet. The story of Mary Magdalene anointing Christ's feet is told in all the gospels. In John 12: 3; Matthew 26: 7, and Mark 14: 3, the episode occurs in Bethany. In John's gospel it is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anoints Christ's feet and then wipes them with her hair; in Matthew and Mark's account the incident takes place in the house of Simon the leper, but the woman who anoints Christ is not named. Where the story gets more confusing is in Luke 7: 37-39:
37. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
38.And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
39. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.
Christ goes on to forgive the woman her sins saying "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7: 50).
In the Roman Catholic tradition Mary of Bethany is synonymous with Mary Magdalene [Mary of Magdala], while in Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions the two are considered separate individuals. Catholic teachings, however, find it inconceivable that she is not the same Mary, identifiable as Mary Magdalene, who was a reformed prostitute and a subsequent follower of Jesus who witnessed his crucifixion and later resurrection. The confusion regarding Mary Magdalene is due to Pope Gregory the Great, who in 591 A.D. said that Mary of Magdala was the woman that the Pharisee described as a "sinner" in the Gospel of Luke. In the eighth chapter of Luke, Jesus is said to have cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene based on the passage: "Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out." Pope Gregory equated the seven demons with the seven deadly sins, thus making Mary, by implication, a prostitute. There is no scriptural evidence, however, to support the contention that Mary Magdalene was ever a "fallen woman." She has been treated as such, however, ever since in Art.
Pre-Raphaelite Influences
Betty Elzea has described the painting as showing:
A young woman with eyes cast downward holds a small decorative jar in her left hand close to her throat, offering the only reference to the subject of the picture's title: Mary Magdalene holding the jar of aromatic ointment with which she anointed Jesus Christ at the supper at Bethany. She is dressed in a scarlet cape with a light green border, decorated at the shoulder with a green and red design of stylized leaf and flower forms. The cape is drawn back showing the pink sleeve of her robe. The background is filled with what appears to be a panel of brocaded textile of late medieval design in tones of deep green, a device often seen in Flemish and Italian devotional paintings from about 1500…. The model for Mary Magdalene seems to be the same young woman as in his Queen Eleanor (1858, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff) and Oriana (1861, Tate London). [Dreams, 208-09]
Pre-Raphaelitism has definitely had an effect on Sandys's painting. Betty Elzea feels this painting may have influenced by D. G. Rossetti's earlier watercolour Mary Magdalene Leaving the House of Feasting of 1857. Although the watercolour shows Mary as a full-length figure. the "pose of the head and the small container she holds up are echoed somewhat in Sandys's painting" (Frederick Sandys, 209). In terms of technique, however, Elzea felt it was far closer to that of J.E. Millais of the 1850s ( Catalogue Raisonné, 120). In terms of subject matter Tim Barringer points out "Mary Magdalene shows that Sandys was abreast of the new Aesthetic taste for single, sensuous female figures placed close to the picture plane" (163). This fashion is generally thought to have been initiated by D. G. Rossetti's Bocca Baciata of 1859. The "Aesthetic" nature of the painting perhaps explains why the figure is placed in the "medieval or Renaissance era rather than Biblical times" (Barringer 163). Barringer also points out that, while the meticulously handled green brocade textile used for the background is probably based on a late medieval example, it is also very much reminiscent of new wall-covering designed by A.W.N. Pugin for the Palace of Westminster (163).
Sensuality Associated with Mary Magdalene
The most helpful discussion of the sensuality of Sandys's painting is by Christopher Newall:
The mood of the painting is solemn and devout, as the Magdalene approaches Christ with downcast eyes and tender expression. Nonetheless, it is clear that the picture reflected contemporary preoccupations with female sexual identity, as well as the instinct on the part of a male painter to look for an opportunity to reflect on the person of a young woman whose submissive demeanour might also indicate sexual awareness and accommodation. Its choice of subject, that of the repentant harlot who is regarded as unfit to attend Jesus because of her immoral life, was tinged with sexual connotation. Furthermore, Victorian viewers of the present painting would immediately have seen it as the representation of a prostitute (reformed or not), simply because such people were often spoken of as Magdalenes. That the picture was intended to suggest sexual intimacy is further demonstrated by the undressed state of the woman's hair, which flows like molten metal across her shoulders and back. Such hair is part of the iconography of the Magdalene, for having washed Christ's feet with her tears, she then "did wipe them with the hairs of her head" (Luke 8:38). However, this is more than just a dutiful treatment of a New Testament subject according to tradition. Here, as on other occasions in Victorian art where a woman is represented with her hair undressed ... viewers of the work of art are invited to speculate about that person's sexual persona…. Here the spectator is invited to gaze and admire, and the physical beauty of the model is more important than the role she plays" (104-05).
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
When it was shown at the British Institution in 1860 a reviewer for the Art Journal disliked Sandys's handling of the Magdalen's neck: "No. 467 Mary Magdalene, F. Sandys. A profile head in which there is much to admire; but the dispositions make the neck appear too long" (80). When it was shown at the French Gallery in 1865 Tom Taylor, the art critic of the Times, thought the painting was "of exquisite finish, and great purity of colour, especially in the flesh painting" (qtd. in Betty Elzea, 171). F.G. Stephens in the Athenaeum also reviewed the painting when it was shown at the French Gallery, but not favourably, finding it eccentric and not well named: "We cannot say much in favour of these qualities [drawing, colouring] in Mr. Sandy's three pictures, The Ear Drop(82), The Flower (83) and Mary Magdalen(84): the last is simply badly named, the others represent not flesh but painted ivory; their designs are eccentric without being strong; they exemplify a very low class of Art, which is sure to be common enough without the aid of Mr. Sandys's unusual merit in making it more so" (619). A reviewer for the Illustrated London News also failed to be impressed by Sandys's contributions to the Winter Exhibition at the French Gallery, again finding it eccentric: "Mr. Sandys, notwithstanding his apparent aiming at late classicism, must be placed among the group of eccentric painters who seem more at home in simulating mediaevalism. He chooses an ultra-antique type, with an unpleasant development of the inferior maxillary. And to luminosity of coloring, he begins to sacrifice modelling" (438).
Sandys produced a different painting of this same subject in 1862 using a different model, in this case Mary Emma Jones (Betty Elzea, Cat. 2.A.55).
Bibliography
Barringer, Tim. Pre-Raphaelites Victorian Avant-Garde. London: Tate Publishing, 2012, cat. 120, 163.
"The British Institution." The Art Journal New Series VI (1 March 1860): 77-80.
Elzea, Betty. Frederick Sandys 1829-1904. A Catalogue Raisonné. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 2001, cat. 2A.55, 171-72.
Elzea, Betty. Waking Dreams. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites from the Delaware Art Museum. Stephen Wildman Ed. Alexandria, Virginia: Art Services International, 2004, cat 55, 208-209.
Elzea, Rowland. The Pre-Raphaelite Collections of the Delaware Art Museum. Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 1984.
"Fine Arts. Winter Exhibition at the French Gallery, Pall-Mall." The Illustrated London News XLVII (November 4, 1865): 438.
Mary Magdalene. Delaware Art Museum. Web. 13 July 2025.
Newall, Christopher. The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones & Watts. Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910. Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone Eds. London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1997, cat. 7, 104-05.
Parris, Leslie. The Pre-Raphaelites. London: The Tate Gallery/Penguin Books, 1984, cat. 101, 176-77.
Staley, Allen. The New Painting of the 1860s. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011. Chapter Three, "Frederick Sandys," 73-76.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Winter Exhibition." The Athenaeum No. 1984 (4 November 1865): 618-19.
Created 13 July 2025