- Museum number
- 1900,0824.124
- Description
-
Judith and her maid putting the head of Holofernes into a sack, study for a print; Judith holding a knife in her right hand, a curtain behind
Red chalk, heightened with white (partly discoloured)
- Production date
- 1527-1530 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 138 millimetres
-
Width: 82 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Study for the etching by Parmigianino (B.XVI, p.6, 1) in the same direction with which it closely corresponds. The BM has a unique impression of the artist's abandoned first attempt at etching the composition (1858,0417.1598) and four of his successful second one (see 1855,0214.74). The ex-Richardson/ West red chalk drawing for the etching mentioned by Popham as being lost but known through Conrad Martin Metz's soft ground etching (Weigel 5394; BM impression 1855,0609.906) has subsequently turned up, see Gnann no. 467.
Lit.: A.E. Popham, 'Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino', New Haven and London, 1971, I, no. 204, pl. 157; A. Gnann, 'Parmigianino, Die Zeichnung', Petersberg, 2007, p. 169, no. 466; C. Jenkins, N. Orenstein and F. Spira, in exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vienna, Albertina, 'The Renaissance of Etching' 2019, no. 60
Popham 1967
Study for the etching by Parmigianino (B. xvi, p. 6, 1), in the same direction and closely- corresponding with it except for details of the l. foreground and in the drapery behind. A similar study was in the elder Richardson's collection and subsequently in that of Benjamin West, when it was engraved in facsimile by Metz (Weigel 5394).
Schiavone's etching (Stanley 103), a study for which is in the Department (1895,0915.854), is a close variant of this composition. Another etching of the subject by him (Stanley 102), entirely different except for the gesture of Judith's r. arm brandishing the sword, may reproduce a lost drawing by Parmigianino.
Literature: Fröhlich-Bum, p. 191; Copertini, ii, p. 28 (note 15); Quintavalle, pp. 76, 85 (note 81) and 197; Emilian Drawings, no. 32; Popham, Parmigianino, pl. xxxix; C. Jenkins, N. Orenstein and F. Spira, 'The Renaissance of Etching' exh. cat. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vienna, Albertina, 2019, cat. no. 60.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2019-2020, 21 Oct-19 Jan, USA, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Renaissance Etching
2020 12 Feb-26 Jul, Austria, Vienna, Albertina, Renaissance Etching
- Acquisition date
- 1900
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1900,0824.124
