Caravaggio's realism returns with his first paintings…

Caravaggio's realism returns with his first paintings on religious themes, and the emergence of remarkable spirituality.

One of the first of these is the Penitent Magdalene, showing Mary Magdalene at the moment when she has turned from her life as a courtesan and sits weeping on the floor, her jewels scattered around her.

It is understated, in the Lombard manner, not histrionic in the Roman manner of the time.

It is followed by others in the same style, including a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, painted around 1597.