Denner, Balthasar (1685-1749), Mary Magdalene.

Balthasar Denner(1685 Hamburg - 1749 Rostock). Mary Magdalene. Oil on copper, 37 × 32 cm (visible size), 45 x 40 cm (frame), signed and indistinctly dated "Denner 17(...)" at centre left.

- Faith transforms inner beauty into outer beauty and conquers death -

Balthasar Denner, known for his veristic and detailed portraits, set himself the artistic challenge of creating an ideal female portrait. The difficulty lies in shaping the physiognomy towards an expressive individuality without bringing out a multitude of individual phenomena that would obscure the ideal aspect of the face. Accordingly, Denner has formulated the special features of the face, such as the chin, the eye sockets or the nostrils, only to the extent that the ideality of Mary Magdalene, inwardly purified by her penance, which is carried in particular by the incarnate parts, does not appear clouded. The impression of immaculate purity is reinforced by the technique of painting on copper, which gives the colours, especially those of the incarnate parts, the preciousness of a translucent porcelain-like melt. A transfiguration of colours that culminates here - in terms of the content of the depiction - in the radiance of Mary Magdalene's eyes. Her emotion, revealed not only by her gaze but also by her slightly open mouth, is not expressed in ecstatic movements, but her almost statuesque posture is transformed into an inner movement: The slanting arms, which seem to float freely, correspond to the head, which is tilted in the opposite direction, thus setting the figure in an ascending movement beyond the area marked by the frame on this side. Mary Magdalene's internal movement is intensified by the brownish drapery that serves as a background for her face, which seems to embrace her from behind and corresponds to the curl of her dark hair.

The way to the Transfiguration is also illustrated on the level of colour: the sitter's lightful, pale blue garment has a red lining, the Marian colours, to illustrate Mary Magdalene as Mary's successor. At the same time, the delicate colours of her garment, including the brownish-yellow of the background drapery, contrast with the deep red of the cloth on which the skull lies, which, together with the skull, evokes passion and transience. It is here that the true meaning of Mary Magdalene's ideal face is revealed: by turning to God, the former sinner overcomes the skull, which sinks into the shadows, and attains a new life that already fills her in this world.

"Some of Denner's portraits have an almost dreamlike quality.
Alfred Lichtwark

In the Hamburgisches Künstler-Lexikon of 1854 (Vol. I, p. 49) the following reference is made to the picture offered here: "In the well-known collection of the canon Hasperg in Hamburg there was a Magdalena by him". The painting is also mentioned in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie: "D[enner] also ventured a few attempts in the historical field in his earlier time, so that a St. Magdalene, a Putiphar and a Nymph rising from the bath are mentioned; still in 1731 a St. Jerome was created (Dresden Museum)".
The painting will be included by Ute Mannhardt M.A. in the catalogue raisonné of Balthasar Denner, which is currently being prepared.

About the artist

Self-portrait by Balthasar Denner, 1718

As a result of an accident that left him permanently unable to walk, Denner began drawing at the age of eight. He was taught by the Dutch painter Franz van Amama. After the family moved to Gdansk, where his father worked as a Mennonite pastor, Balthasar Denner learned the rudiments of oil painting. After working in his uncle's Hamburg trading company from 1701 to 1707, Denner, who spent every spare hour painting, was admitted to the recently founded Berlin Academy in 1707.
Denner's brilliant career as a portraitist began with his portrait of Duke Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp and his sister, painted in 1709. The duke invited him to Gottdorf Castle, where he painted 21 family portraits. When Peter the Great took possession of Holstein, he had to beg the duke not to send the work to Petersburg.
Back in Hamburg-Altona he began an unbroken chain of portrait commissions. These included Frederick IV of Denmark, who invited Denner to Copenhagen in 1717, where he stayed for ten months as a portraitist. Other stations were Wolfenbüttel and Hanover. There he painted portraits of the English aristocracy, which led to an invitation to London, where the exhibition of a portrait of an old woman caused a sensation. The painting was eventually purchased by the enthusiastic Charles VI for the princely sum of 4700 florins. The Viennese monarch kept the painting in a box, the key to which he always carried with him, so that he could show it only to selected people. Denner made expensive, lockable boxes of fine wood for his paintings, so that viewing the portraits, which seemed to come to life, was a very special event.
In 1728 Denner returned to Hamburg, but continued to travel from commission to commission. He travelled to Dresden to paint a portrait of the King of Poland, August II, from there to Berlin in 1730, via Hamburg to Amsterdam, where he stayed for six months, and back to Hamburg. This peripatetic life of one of the most sought-after portraitists of his time was not to change. Among the most important commissions were portraits of the Danish King Christian VI, the Russian Tsar Peter III and the Swedish King Adolf Friedrich. After remaining in Brunswick to paint portraits of the members of the Mecklenburg court, Denner travelled to Schwerin and Rostock on commission from Duke Christian Ludwig II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Denner's portraits circulated throughout the courts of Europe and were often printed. In 1739 a medal of honour was dedicated to him in Braunschweig, with the following inscription on the obverse "Balth. Denner Hamb. Pict. in suo genere unicus". Heinrich Brockes, whose children Denner had portrayed, praised his art in several poems.
The great esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries was followed by a period of devaluation: in the art theory of the late 18th century, Balthasar Denner's portraits became the negative example of a mere meticulous depiction of painting, which was therefore dull and unartistic. This led to a general oblivion of Denner's magnificent feats of characterisation, which rival the portraits of a Dürer in their convincing detail.

"Denner was undoubtedly one of the greatest portrait painters; his portraits not only had the merit of a splendid likeness, but were of a masterly execution; one seldom finds such beautiful transparent flesh, for the production of which he is said to have used a varnish which he prepared himself and the composition of which he kept secret".

Hamburg Dictionary of Artists

"In his portraits [...] Denner shows very considerable painterly experience and a high degree of psychological empathy".

Horst Appuhn in Neue Deutsche Biographie

Selection of places where works by Balthasar Denner are in public collections

Amsterdam, Berlin, Braunschweig, Bremen, Breslau, Dresden, Hamburg, Kiel, Copenhagen, Lübeck, Munich, Paris, Riga, Schwerin, Stuttgart, St Petersburg, Vienna, Wolfenbüttel.

Selected Bibliography

Jakob Campo Weyerman: Denner, Levens-Beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konstschilders. Dordrecht, 1769, S. 89–92.

Hamburgisches Künstler-Lexikon. Bearb. von einem Ausschusse des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, Hamburg, 1854, S. 43-51.

Heinz Mansfeld: Malerei des 18. Jahrhunderts im Staatlichen Museum Schwerin, Schwerin 1954.

Gerhard Gerkens (Hg.): Balthasar Denner 1685 - 1749. Franz Werner Tamm 1658 - 1724. 20. Ausstellung im BAT-Haus zur Jahrhundertfeier der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg 1969.

Helmut R. Leppien: Der Bildnismaler Balthasar Denner. In: Die Kunst des protestantischen Barock in Hamburg. Hrsg. v. Volker Plagemann, Hamburg 2001, S. 178-187.

Daniel Spanke: Porträt - Ikone - Kunst. München 2004.