Copy (?) after Melchior de la Mars, or an original?

At Horta in Brussels, they sell on 11 May 2015 a "Flemish School, 17th century" depiction of Mary Magdalen, estimated at 3,500 by 5,000 Euro.

It is a copy(?) of the Mary Magdalen by Melchior de la Mars in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. It has the exact same dimensions (113 by 86 vs. 111,6 by 86,5), and seems to be painted very well. The different colour is probably a condition issue (the one for sale should be cleaned, while the one in the Museum seems overcleaned).

I can't find good price indications of what an original De la Mars would be worth, they are very rare, but it should be a lot more than the estimate. If it is a copy, it is a good one (the Galerie Moderne site gives very large images, letting you zoom in on every detail: e.g. the right wing of the angel is beautiful) and should be worth at least the top end of the estimate, but an original could well be worth ten times as much.

After Pompeo Battoni, Magdalen

An unrecognised copy of the Magdalen by Pompeo Battoni. Often copied, but rarely can one find a decent copy so cheap as this one is now. For sale at Kamelot Auctions, 7 February 2015 (which made me chuckle, as "Kamelot" is Flemish Dutch for "rubbish"). Only $200, it's a steal. Simply described as "An antique oil on canvas laid on board of a recumbent woman reading." though, which makes it harder to find! UPDATE: it was indeed a steal, it sold in the end for $1,600!

Was the Mytens "Magdalen" an inspiration for Caravaggio?

I discussed a panel by Aert Mytens (1541-1602) depicting the Magdalena in Extasy in my post here, but it interested me enough to continue my search for information. Connecting the dots and making some serious leaps, I came to a rather exciting though highly speculative conclusion.

As said in the earlier post, the painting shares the main figure with a "Death of Cleopatra" by Mytens in the British Royal Collection. This painting turns out to be a copy of a work by Rosso Fiorentino (1495-1540) from 1525, pictured above, and now displayed in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick, Germany.

And that one is based on the antique sculpture of the "Sleeping Ariadne" in the Uffizi.

In the book "The Age of Caravaggio", a publication from Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1985, this Rosso painting is said to be a major source for Caravaggio's "Magdalen in Extasy". This is discussed at page 313, but sadly I can't access the next page, 314, so I have to base my speculation on the part I have access to... The link between the Rosso work and Caravaggio is, according to the book, done through copies of the work. One is mentioned where the Cleopatra is transformed in a Magdalen by the addition of a cross in her hand; on the other hand, Mytens' copy of the Cleopatra is mentioned as well, and Mytens' interest in Caravaggesque lighting effects (or more precisely pre-Caravaggesque, as Mytens worked earlier).

The logical next step, that it wasn't Mytens copy of the Cleopatra but Mytens reworking of the painting in a Magdalena in Extasy, the very same subject of the Caravaggio, that was the inspiration for that work in topic and style (though thoroughly reworked and reinvented by Caravaggio), is not given in the book, perhaps because the author didn't know the work that was for sale here.

Obviously, it's speculation, but given what we know (or what more authoritative sources have written) about the possible influence of both Mytens and the Cleopatra painting on this work of Caravaggio, and the fact that the Mytens Magdalen is even closer to the Caravaggio, it doesn't seem such a huge leap to suggest that the painting that was for sale here (and was unsaleable before) was actually not just a Mytens, but one with serious importance in the history of art.

Even ignoring the Caravaggio angle, the Mytens painting seems to have been copied in a slightly changed version a lot as well, first by Jacques Bellangé, and then by many followers. In it, the Magdalena has  a quite ostentatious cross in her right hand, and her left elbow rests on a skull. The above is a version by a follower of Bellange sold at Christie's for 2,500 Euro. If the first painting is by Mytens, then it seems that his version, with the Magdalena angle, and the replacement of the angel to the left with the typical background one sees also in the final picture, is the basis of all these ones as well (as they all are more recent). More speculation, and none of it proves that the painting for sale is the original Mytens one and not indeed a later copy, but it is a painting and history that invites further study and consideration.

The sale is still two weeks away, and the estimate is $2,000 to $2,700...