Saint Mary Magdalen with the Smoking Flame

The penitent Magdalen sits in darkness, her hand resting on a skull in her lap, gazing into the long, smoking flame of a single oil lamp; a mirror, books, and a discarded cord lie nearby. Georges de la Tour reduces the scene to a few forms modeled by that one warm light, the silence almost audible. The skull and flame mark the brevity of life and the soul's turn from vanity to repentance. Now in the Louvre, it is among the most contemplative of his nocturnes, a meditation built from shadow and a single small fire.