This is a past event
5 November 2025
Dr Joanne Anderson (Art History, Aberdeen):
Donatello's Mary Magdalen and Prostitution in Early Renaissance Florence
This paper focuses on Donatello’s pioneering wooden sculpture of the emaciated yet powerful saint dating to c.1440 (Florence, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) to afford critical insight into the vicissitudes of her femininity as a repentant prostitute. It will examine the relationship between the natural substance of the work of art and the subject matter in the context of civic management of prostitution and contemporary discourse on the crafting of women’s appearances as an indictment of their morality.
She is a Reader in Art History at Aberdeen and specialises on Mary Magdalen’s late medieval cult and image. Her research also encompasses late medieval art in the mountains, mobility and experience of art, artistic production and patronage. She has contributed to the Oxford Handbook of Mary Magdalene, Oxford University Press, 2024, and A Cultural History of Prostitution in the Medieval Age with Bloomsbury (2025).
- Speaker
- Dr Joanne Anderson (Art History, Aberdeen)
- Venue
- Taylor A36
- Contact
-
Contact art-history@abdn.ac.uk
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