L. Brignoli - “con il pennello meraviglie oprando”. The Maddalena penitente, a devotional treasure by Giovan Paolo Lolmo

The paper publishes an unknown oil on canvas, the Maddalena by Giovan Paolo Lolmo.

Fascinating painter of the late Cinquecento in Bergamo, Lolmo grew up in the workshop of Giovan Battista Moroni and developed an independent, ‘pointed’ style, influenced also by some important painters of northern Italian school of the XVIth century.

The Maddalena may be dated around 1585 by comparisons with other Lolmo’s works, above all the altarpiece in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo; characterized by a series of lenticular details, the canvas shows an erotic summit masked in the sacred subject. Metallic hairs, the refined drape and the turgid skin are clues of the high quality of this painting.

Giovan Paolo Lolmo, Bergamo, Cinquecento’s painting, Giovan Battista Moroni, restoration, connoisseurship