A painting commissioned by Isabel Lopes, according to a will dated 1524, for the main altar of the Church of Madalena do Mar, founded by Henry the German, as related in the description of St. Joachim and St. Anne in the collection of this Museum. According to the terms of her will, the order for the painting had to be completed within a maximum of two years after her death.
The painting was found in 1940, and it was shown in the National Museum of Ancient Art in 1955. It was present at the Europalia Festival, as a part of the exhibition Feitorias in Antwerp in 1991, and was again displayed at the National Museum of Ancient Art in 1992. It was first attributed to Henri met de Bless, also known as the Master of Civetta (hoot owl), because he signed his works with a small owl perched at the edge of a field. In 1991, it was already attributed to Jan Provoost. With the figure of Mary Magdalene, in a monumental foreground, the picture presents a succession of registers of height, densely occupied by groves of trees, persons, castles, a group of houses, rivers and ports, where a secondary scene of the penitent Mary Magdalene stands out. A similar compositional structure can be seen in the breviary of Mayer van der Bergh, representing Our Lady of the Snows. Provoost was one of its authors, and was therefore familiar with this type of composition.
Here, special emphasis is given to one of the forms for representing the Saint, as Magna Peccatrix, who repents at the vision of the Saviour.
Various works ordered for Madeira are attributed to the workshop of Jan Provoost, such as the retable of the Misericórdia of Funchal, today in the National Museum of Ancient Art, and the wings of the parish church of the village of Calheta, in this Museum of Sacred Art.
This painting is unequivocally in the line of continuity of the last productions of the master.