Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino

Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 1998, lot 98 (as Italian School, 16th Century);
with Flavia Ormond Fine Arts Ltd, London, 1998; acquired in 1998

D. Ekserdijian, 'Unpublished Drawings by Parmigianino: Towards a Supplement to Popham's catalogue raisonné',  Apollo, August 1999,  pp. 20-21, no. 32, reproduced fig. 43;
Mary Vaccaro, Parmigianino, The Paintings, Turin 2002, p. 157, under Related Drawings

Laid down on japan paper. Losses at left edge. Damage around the woman's right cheek. Seem to be thin spots and wear in various places, but overall condition of chalk still good and strong. Sold framed.
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The attribution of this lovely study was first proposed by Hugo Chapman.  David Ekserdjian published it as a study for the head of the Virgin in The Vision of St. Jerome, now in the National Gallery, London.  The painting was commissioned in 1526 by Maria Bufolini for her husband's family chapel in S. Salvatore in Lauro, Rome.  Vasari recounts that the painting was in Parmigianino's studio at the time of the Sack of Rome and that the imperial troops who invaded his studio were so impressed by it that they allowed him to continue painting.  The iconography is extremely unusual and original, and seems to have evolved through the extensive series of preparatory studies that have survived.  They are in various media and generally of groups of figures; there is no other study as specific as this head, which seems in fact to be drawn directly from a model.¹

1. For the painting, its history, and related works, see Mary Vaccaro, op. cit., pp. 154-7