Maria Magdalena

This portrait of St. Mary Magdalene, by the Dutch painter Jan van Scorel, dates back to 1530 and is currently housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There are two other copies, created by the same artist, preserved in the Galleria di Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo and the Porczyński Gallery in Warsaw.

The saint is depicted with her most distinctive attribute: a finely chiseled vessel containing the oil for the anointing of Jesus. An inscription in pseudo-Hebrew characters can be seen on the neckline of the precious garment. Despite some inconsistent interpretative attempts, no scholar has so far been able to decipher it.

According to an interesting essay by Marjorie Malvern, "Venus in Sackcloth: The Magdalen's Origins and Metamorphoses" (Carbondale 1975), the iconography of Magdalene is greatly indebted to more ancient influences dating back at least to the 3rd millennium BC and originating from the Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds. The reference is, in fact, to the primordial deities of fertility and regeneration such as Ishtar, Isis, Hera, Aphrodite, Psyche, and Pandora, often associated with the presence of a vessel.

The vessel – like the egg – is the symbolic form closest to the eternal feminine that preserves, maintains, and nurtures physical and spiritual life through its invisible content of prodigious forces. A recommended book for further reading is "Maria Maddalena e la dea dell'ombra. Il sacro femminile, la spiritualità della dea e l'immaginario contemporaneo" by Mario Arturo Iannaccone (Milan, 2006).