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Introduction
'The Finding of Aesculapius', Giovanni Tognolli
'Christ and the Magdalen'
'Christ blessing the little children', Benjamin Robert Haydon
'The Lady with the Japanese Gown: Miss Enid Rutherford', James Hamilton Hay
'Comtesse de Morel-Vindé and her daughter', Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard
'Napoleon Crossing the Alps', Paul Delaroche
'Lady in Black Furs', Pilade Bertieri
'Samson', Solomon J Solomon
'Hazel in Rose and Gold', Sir John Lavery
'Portrait of William Roscoe', Sir Martin Archer Shee

'Christ and the Magdalen', Arthur Hacker

Christ is standing whilst Mary Magdelen kneels at his feet looking up at his face which to the viewer is not detailed.

Oil on canvas, painted in 1890

Acc. No. WAG 2951

At the start of his career Hacker specialised in scenes depicting the poor and country life, but later he concentrated on literary and religious themes. Here, realism and spirituality are blended, as was recognised by critics when the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891. Particularly commented on was the artist’s treatment of the figure of Christ, mean and even emaciated.

Although the scene is set in the carpenter’s shop where Christ worked as a young man, the Bible makes no mention of him ever meeting Mary Magdalen there. Hacker appears therefore to have invented the episode or re-staged one from later in Christ’s life, as if to draw attention to his artistic freedom to manipulate sources, no matter how supposedly sacred they might be.