120px|The Magdalen Reading

The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th century oil-on-oak altarpiece by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. Completed sometime between 1435 and 1438, it has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyebrows typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period. The woman is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which, according to the Gospels, she used to clean Christ's feet. The background of the painting had been overpainted with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956, which removed the overpaint, revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalen and the kneeling figure with bare feet protruding in front of her, with a landscape visible through a window. The original altarpiece was a sacra conversazione known only through a drawing, Virgin and Child with Saints. The panel was purchased by the National Gallery, London, in 1860 from a collector in Paris. It is described by art historian Lorne Campbell as "one of the great masterpieces of 15th-century art and among van der Weyden's most important early works." (more...)

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1138:

English forces repelled a Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in Yorkshire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Standard

1791:

A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, starting the Haitian Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

1851:

The yacht America won the first America's Cup race near the Isle of Wight, England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Cup

1864:

The Red Cross movement led by Henry Dunant officially began when twelve European nations signed the First Geneva Convention, establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Geneva_Convention

1944:

World War II: Wehrmacht infantry carried out an assault operation against the civilian residents of nine villages located in the Amari Valley on the Greek island of Crete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_of_Kedros

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apograph (n): A perfect copy or replica http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apograph

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A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory. --Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil%2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury