drawing
- Museum number
- 1905,1110.51
- Description
-
The Vestal Tuccia, after Parmigianino; a woman with swirling drapery turned to right, looking round to left
Red chalk, heightened with white (oxidised)
- Production date
- 1518-1540
- Dimensions
-
Height: 100 millimetres
-
Width: 74 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Corresponding closely in reverse with the etchings signed "F.P." (B.XVI, p.26, 23).
Popham 1967
Closely corresponding, in reverse, with the etching signed "F. P." (B. xvi, p. 26, 23). Another version is at Windsor (01346; Popham, no. 610). Bartsch calls the object held by the figure "un plat ou quelque autre objet ronde", and in the Windsor catalogue I describe it as a wreath. In 1905,1110.51, however, it appears quite clearly as a sieve, the attribute of Tuccia, one of the vestal Virgins, who when accused of incest was able to prove her innocence by carrying a sieve filled with water from the Tiber to the temple of Vesta.
The appearance of the present drawing is much impaired by the oxidisation of the white heightening, but its quality is good. I think nevertheless that, like the drawing at Windsor, it is a copy. The original probably belonged to the series of small metal-point drawings of mythological and allegorical subjects, some of which are at Chatsworth (cf. Popham, 'Parmigianino', p. 35).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1905
- Acquisition notes
- For a note on the acquisition history, see 1905,1110.11.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1905,1110.51
