This oval alabaster relief on a small scale is a representation of the penitent Mary Magdalene as a hermit in the desert. Holding a death’s head and a crucifix in her hands, the naked saint kneels before the Bible; in the background Mary Magdalene in ecstasy, borne aloft by winged putti, is visible through a hole in the rock. The story that is told here is the history of the penitent Magdalene, who, according to the Legenda aurea, lived the last thirty years of her life as a penitent in a cave in the south of France, where she spent her days in prayer. Every day at the Seventh Hour of prayer she was borne up by angels into the Heavens, where she listened to the music of the Heavenly Hosts. The handling of the nude figure’s anatomical features, her standardised facial features, her hair and the minimalist representation of the background are all features characteristic of the early work produced by Leonhard Kern (1588–1662), who in the second quarter of the seventeenth century would advance to the status of being a leading German sculptor, specialising mainly in small-scale sculpture in the form of Kunstkammer objects. Attribution of this masterly alabaster relief to Kern and a date to the early phase of the artist’s work between 1614 and 1620 are based on comparison with stylistically related works by the artist held by the Stiftsmuseum Klosterneuburg, the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Hohenlohe-Museum Schloss Neuenstein, the Kolumba - Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln in Cologne and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

USA, private collection