- Museum number
- 1951,0801.4
- Description
-
A partly draped woman seated against a column and a leg
Red chalk, pen and brown ink
Verso: Two hands and part of Marcantonio's engraving of Poetry, after Raphael
Pen and black ink, on grey-brown prepared paper
- Production date
- 1522-1523 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 137 millimetres
-
Width: 184 millimetres (irregularly cut)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit.: A.E. Popham, 'Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino', Cambridge, 1971, no. 168, pl. 16; A. Gnann, 'Parmigianino, Die Zeichnung', Petersberg, 2007, pp. 46, 93, no. 71
Popham 1967
I suggested in the catalogue of the Emilian Drawings Exhibition that the female nude on the recto might be a study for St. Agatha in the first chapel on the l. in S. Giovanni Evangelista, Parma (Freedberg, fig. 9). Both are seated figures in front of a column, and the style of the present drawing is undoubtedly early; otherwise there is little similarity between the figures. (As Professor Wilde pointed out to me, the St. Agatha is derived from the figure of Eve in Michelangelo's 'Temptation' in the Sistine Chapel.) The figure in the drawing could equally well be connected with the figure of a sibyl (or Virgin Annunciate) in the Louvre (6432; photo. Gernsheim 6907; 1964 Exh. Cat., no. 68 and pl. xviii) or with the Virgin in the Louvre study for the Cook 'Holy Family' (6446; photo. Gernsheim 6910; 1964 Exh. Cat., no. 51; Popham, 'Parmigianino', pl. ix).
The two studies of hands on the verso are certainly by Parmigianino and may be compared with those on the verso of 1853,1008.3; that on the r. closely resembles the r. hand of a Virgin Annunciate in a drawing in the Louvre (6380; photo. Gernsheim 6998; 1964 Exh. Cat., under no. 68) which has been plausibly connected by Mile Bacou with the lost 'tondo' mentioned by Vasari (v, p. 224) as having been painted, presumably in Rome, for Angelo Cesi.
The copy after Marcantonio's engraving of Raphael's 'Poetry' (B. xiv, p. 291, 382) on the verso is less obviously by Parmigianino, but it would be rash to assume that it must be by a different hand. The two words appear to be in the artist's hand. The first seems to read "Filiums".
Literature: Emilian Drawings, no. 21; Popham, 'Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino', Cambridge, 1971, No.167; L. Angelucci, exhib. cat., Louvre, 2015, Parmigianino: Dessins du Louvre, pp. 25-26
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1951
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
[Part of an] unrecognizable circular collector's mark, stamped on verso.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1951,0801.4
