Marina Warner’s Pentimento is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, St Mary of Egypt (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo).

The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023.

The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling.

Read the text and see the artwork here.

Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com, @therobertsinstituteofart and subscribe to our newsletter!