The famous statue carved in wood by Donatello, in point of character may be referred to this class of subjects: she stands over her altar in the Baptistery at Florence, with clasped hands, the head raised in prayer; the form is very expressive of wasting grief and penance, but too meagre for beauty. ‘_Egli, la volle specchio alle penitenti, non incitamento alla cupidizia degli sguardi, come avenne ad altri artisti_,’ says Cicognara; and, allowing that beauty has been sacrificed to expression, he adds, ‘but if Donatello had done all, what would have remained for Canova?’ That which remained for Canova to do, he has done; he has made her as lovely as possible, and he has dramatised the sentiment: she is more the penitent than the patron saint. The display of the beautiful limbs is chastened by the humility of the attitude—half kneeling, half prostrate; by the expression of the drooping head—‘all sorrow’s softness charmed from its despair.’ Her eyes are fixed on the cross which lies extended on her knees; and she weeps—not so much her own past sins, as the sacrifice it has cost to redeem them. This is the prevailing sentiment, or, as the Germans would call it, the _motive_ of the representation, to which I should feel inclined to object as deficient in dignity and severity, and bordering too much on the _genre_ and dramatic style: but the execution is almost faultless. Very beautiful is another modern statue of the penitent Magdalene, executed in marble for the Count d’Espagnac, by M. Henri de Triqueti. She is half seated, half reclining on a fragment of rock, and pressing to her bosom a crown of thorns, at once the mourner and the penitent: the sorrow is not for herself alone. [Illustration: 92 Mary Magdalene (Lucas v. Leyden)]