ABSTRACT
Some of the more common variants of half-length Magdalene images made for the northern European markets in the 1520s and 1530s depict her in contemporary garb, playing a lute or clavichord. Produced in Antwerp by artists like the Master of the Female Half-lengths (Plate 13) and Jan van Hemessen and his shop (Plate 14 and Figure 4.3), the images’ relationship to the market and their meanings have remained problematical; some scholars even question their identity as the Magdalene. As popular serial works, these were not commissioned for one patron or a particular locale. Thus, as with the paintings examined in Chapter 3, any analysis must consider their relation to the economics of speculative production driving Antwerp’s art trade as well as their reception by customers of differing classes and even religions.
