drawing
- Museum number
- 1946,0713.440
- Description
-
A group of five nude women standing
Pen and brown ink
Verso: A woman playing the organ
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1518-1540
- Dimensions
-
Height: 114 millimetres
-
Width: 94 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Not in Phillipps-Fenwick. See Phillipps MS 21830.
The drawing on the recto is perhaps connected with the composition of the Bathing Nymphs known from the drawing in the Uffizi; the drawing on the verso is a study for a S Cecilia, for a composition known from the woodcut (B.XII, p.85, 37).
See Popham, 'Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino', Cambridge, 1971, No.174.
Popham 1967
The drawing on the recto is perhaps connected with the composition of 'Bathing Nymphs' known from the much reproduced drawing in the Uffizi (751E; Popham, 'Parmigianino', pl. xxiii, etc.) and an anonymous chiaroscuro woodcut (B. xii, p. 122, 22). The Uffizi drawing is generally dated in the period of Parmigianino's stay in Rome, but the idea of the 'Bathing Nymphs' is perhaps of somewhat earlier date: a similar composition occurs in a drawing at Berlin for the decoration of a room (489; repr. 'Master Drawings', ut cit., pl. 2) the style of which, like that of 1946,0713.440, is certainly early. The two may be connected with the decoration at Fontanellato.
The fragmentary drawing on the verso is no doubt a study for a 'St. Cecilia', and though she is here shown sitting at the instrument, this may be an early design for the circular composition known from the chiaroscuro woodcut B. xii, p. 85, 37 (repr. 'Exposition: Clairs-obscurs . . . provenant de collections hollandaises', Paris-Rotterdam, 1965-6, pl. xxiii).
Literature: A. E. Popham, Master Drawings, i (1963), no. 1, pp. 6 and 10 (note 15).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1946
- Acquisition notes
- Rev Philip Goddard of Broadstone (according to Phillipps MS, volume from which the drawing came).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1946,0713.440
