| Signed: “Franc’. Lacoma y Sans lo copió del original del Caballero Meins” [sic] (in ink, at back).
Inscribed: On frame, on old card, in ink: “124". On back of canvas, in chalk: “15"; on label of the Academy, in ink: “N.a. 124/ N.M. 143/ Santa Magdalena/ Copia de Menghs/ Por Lacoma".
Provenance: A work made as scholarship-holder. It entered the Museum of the former Junta de Comerç.
Came to the Academy's Museum: 1804.
Note: The original work, as Rafael Cornudella pointed out, is the Penitent Magdalene by Mengs (oil on panel, 29,3 x 37,7 cm), which formed part of Spanish Royal collections until 1812, and later passed to the collection of the Duke of Wellington (presently in the collection of the Duke of Wellington, Both Stratfield Saye). See Steffi ROETTGEN: Anton Raphael Mengs 1728 - 1779 and his British Patrons, Zwemmer, London 1993, pp. 105-106.
It is not to be mistaken for another (lost) copy of a Magdalene by Van Dyck, which some sources credit to Lacoma himself and others to Pau Montanya. |
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