Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino

Thomas Coke, 1^st Earl of Leicester (1697-1759), his mount, with the attribution Parmegiano in Thomas Pelletier's (?) hand;
by descent until, sale, London, Christie's, Old Master Drawings from Holkham Hall, 2 July 1991, lot 4;
New York, et al., Kunsthandel Bellinger, Galerie de Bayser, Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, European Master Drawings, 1994, no. 6

London, Arts Council, An Exhibition of Old Master Drawings from the Collection of the Earl of Leicester, Holkham Hall, 1948, no. 24;
London, Thomas Agnew and Sons Ltd., Old Master Drawings from Holkham, 1977, no. 9

 

A. E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London 1971, vol. I, pp. 102 and 216, no. 749; vol. III, reproduced pl. 333;
E. Battisti, 'Ecce virgo ecce habet lampades. Il Parmigianino alla Steccata', Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma, ed. B. Adorni, Parma 1982, p. 120, reproduced p. 129;
A. E. Popham and C. Lloyd, Old Master Drawings at Holkham Hall, Chicago 1986, no. 194;
M. Vaccaro, Parmigianino, The Paintings, Turin 2002, p. 189, under no. 37;
A. Gnann, Parmigianino, Die Zeichnungen, Petersberg 2007, vol. I, p. 482, no. 821; vol. II, p. 608, reproduced      

Laid down on the Holkham mount with a single line of gold and wash lines around the drawing. Sold in a French antique wooden gilded frame. The ink is stronger and darker and the paper tone is much warmer than appears in the catalogue illustration. Trace of a horizontal fold across the upper part of the figure. A small round light brown stain at the lower left, where some pen and ink sketches on the verso are slightly visible. Traces of slight foxing scattered throughout the sheet, but slightly more visible at the lower part of the figure. A faint vertical line of surface dirt slightly visible running from the figure's cheek to her breast. All may be seen in the catalogue illustration. Overall in stable, good condition
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This study relates closely to the right-hand figures carrying amphorae on their heads in the vault of Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma, although there are differences in the drapery and in the form of the vase.  Popham lists a number of drawings related to the canephori but none is in this particular fluid, essential pen and ink technique.  The figures are at the base of the vault and hold out lamps while balancing the vases on their heads.  This has led to their being referred to as Wise Virgins, but Popham suggests that the addition of the lamps, which do not appear in any of the studies, was a request of the Confraternity to make the figures less pagan.

Parmigianino was commissioned on 10 May 1531 to paint a Coronation of the Virgin in the eastern apse of the church and decorate the vaulting between the apse and the central dome, as well as the adjoining friezes, cornices and sottarchi.  The work was to be completed by November 1532.  Very little work seems to have been done and a new contract was drawn up in September 1535.  Much of the decoration of the vault must have been completed by August 1539, but work on the apse had not even begun so the members of  the Confraternity lost patience and had Parmigianino imprisoned.  He was soon released but fled to Casalmaggiore, having first defaced some of the work he had done at the church.  In December 1539 he was excluded from further involvement and the commission for the apse decoration was given to Giulio Romano and in the end was executed by Michelangelo Anselmi on his designs.  In spite of the unhappy history of this commission, a very large number of studies exist for the decoration of the vault and the sottarchi.¹

1. For an account of the commission and a complete list of the related drawings, see Popham, op. cit., 1971, vol. I, p. 22ff; p. 101, under no. 228.