- Museum number
- 1895,0915.740
- Description
-
A Genius pouring libation and holding a cornucopia, and a reclining woman with a cornucopia, arched
Red chalk
- Production date
- 1518-1519 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 59 millimetres
-
Width: 157 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- A study for two adjoining lunettes on the east wall of the Camera di San Paolo, a small room in the private apartment in the Benedictine convent of San Paolo in Parma probably painted by Correggio in c. 1518-19 (Ekserdjian fig. 77). At the base of the vault are sixteen lunettes, with figures painted to simulate antique sculptures set in concave niches. The subjects of the two ovals related to the BM sheet are a Genius before an altar (left), and the earth goddess Tellus (right). Many of the figures are based on ancient coins (underlining Parma's importance as a centre of numismatics at this period), and this clearly demonstrable in the case of the BM sheet. The left-hand figure of a putto is inspired by a coin, originating from the period of the emperor Titus (79-81), of a young man holding a cornucopia and pouring oil over a flaming altar. In the drawing the youth is transformed into a putto but in the finished fresco he returns to his original form, perhaps because the artist judged that it would look odd to have a gigantic infant on the same scale as fully grown figures in the other lunettes. The source for the figure of Tellus is a coin from the reign of the emperor Hadrian (117-38) showing an allegorical figure of Africa. The pose of the figure is slightly adapted in the drawing, and she is also given a serpent rather than an elephant head-dress but this could be due to a misreading of a worn impression of the coin rather than a deliberate change. In the final work the identification of the figure is made easier by a mound of earth on which she rests.
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, 'Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq.', London, 1876, no. 300; A.E. Popham, 'Correggio's Drawings', London, 1957, pp. 14-15, no. 9, p. 150. pl. VIIb; E. Panofsky, 'The Iconography of Correggio's Camera di San Paolo', London, 1961, pp. 81-2; A.E. Popham, 'Italian drawings in the BM, artists working in Parma', London, 1967, London, no. 5, p. 3, pl. 3B; C. Gould, 'Correggio', London, 1976, p. 244, pl. 37C; D. De Grazia, in exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art and Parma, Galleria Nazionale, 'Correggio and His Legacy', 1984, no. 7, p. 80; M. Di Giampaolo and A. Muzzi, 'Correggio i disegni', Turin, 1988, no. 9; D. Ekserdjian, 'Correggio', New Haven and London, 1997, p. 88, fig. 78; H. Chapman, in exhib. cat., BM and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Correggio and Parmigianino', 2000-2001, no. 7
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1984 Mar-July, Washington, NGA, Correggio, no.8
2000/1, Oct-Jan, BM, Drawings by 'Correggio and Parmigianino, no.7
2001 Feb-May, New York, Met Mus of Art, Drawings by Correggio and Parmigianino', no.7
2008/9 Sep-Jan, Parma, Galleria Nazionale, Correggio
2016 Mar-Jun, Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, 'Correggio e Parmigianino'
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.740
