Mary Magdalene appears in the Gospels as a devoted follower of Jesus. She is present at the crucifixion, first to witness the resurrection, the original Christian witness. There is little agreement, however, as to who she actually was. Medieval tradition conflated her with other unnamed women in the New Testament—the sinner who washed the feet of Jesus, the woman taken in adultery—and saw her as the repentant prostitute that painters spent five centuries depicting in various states of weeping, half-naked penitence, and ecstatic ascent. The Catholic Church officially corrected that reading in 1969. The confusion had made her one of the most painted figures in Western art—a woman who could be a sinner and saint simultaneously, sexuality and spirituality in the same frame, available to each era as a screen on which to project its own ideas about women, transgression, and redemption. The Städel Museum in Frankfurt, in partnership with the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, now presents the first comprehensive exhibition in the German-speaking world devoted to Ms. Magdalene. The over 100 works on view reach from the Middle Ages to the present day—from Dürer and Artemisia Gentileschi to Marlene Dumas, Kiki Smith, and Lady Gaga. —Elena Clavarino