* Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino Parma 1503 - 1540 Casalmaggiore

This very beautiful study, previously unknown, is a significant addition to the corpus of drawings by Parmigianino.  It must represent an allegorical figure of Justice attended by a winged youth holding a sword.  Justice rests with her eyes closed against a window open to a landscape, a composition inspired by that of an engraving of The Vision of Saint Helena (see Raphael Invenit, exh. cat., Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, 1985, p. 217, no.IV, reproduced p. 763), which has been considered an invention of Parmigianino's but is in fact based on a figure in a Raphael drawing of circa 1514, now in the Uffizi (see Eckhart Knab, Erwin Mitsch, Konrad Oberhuber, Raffaello, I Disegni, Florence 1983, fig. 483).  The discovery of the present drawing helps to clarify the subject of a closely related, double-sided study, in black chalk over stylus, which is generally dated to Parmigianino's Roman period, circa 1524-27 (collection of Jan and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, see The Timeless Eye, exh. cat., Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, and Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, 1999-2000, cat. no. 27, reproduced).  David Ekserdjian has confirmed the attribution and the dating of our drawing and suggests that it could have been made in preparation for an engraving.