The Penitent Magdalene

Meissen Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The pose of the Magdalene is derived from a painting by Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787) that entered the Royal Saxon collections in the 1750s. Christian Gottfried Jüchtzer, the modeler of the figure, has taken Batoni’s late Baroque composition and given it a distinctly neoclassical aspect, an impression reinforced by the use of biscuit porcelain which is so similar visually to marble.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art