POMPONIO ALLEGRI | The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

With Benjamin Vandergucht (1753-1794), painter turned picture dealer;

Purchased from the above in 1789 by Sir Abraham Hume, Bt. (d. 1838), of Ashbridge Park, and by descent;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 December 1972, lot 14, for 3,200 Guineas (as Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli);

Acquired there or shortly after by the father of the present owner.

A. Hume, A Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection of Pictures, Comprehending Specimens of All the Various Schools of Painting..., 1824, no. 56 (as Correggio);

A.R. Milstein, The Paintings of Girolamo Bedoli, New York 1978, p. 362, reproduced fig. 154 (as Pomponio Allegri).

Pomponio Allegri was the son of one of the most celebrated Renaissance painters, Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio. Having learnt the rudiments of art from his father before he died when Pomponio was only thirteen, Pomponio was taught principally by Francesco Rondani, one of Correggio's pupils. Pomponio received important commissions in Parma, including a fresco in the cathedral, which depicts Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai. We are grateful to Professor David Ekserdjian for noting the derivation of the figure of Joseph in the present painting from a drawing of a standing man by Parmigianino (Musée du Louvre, Paris),¹ which was also copied by Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli in his painting of the Raising of Drusiana (Museo di Palazzo Ducale, Mantua).²

1 Inv. no. 6394; see A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London 1971, vol. I, p. 137, cat. no. 374, reproduced vol. II, plate 197. 

2 D. Ekserdjian, 'Sui disegni di Parmigianino e i dipinti del Bedoli: una questione di influssi', in L. Fornari Schianchi (ed.), Parmigianino e il manierismo europeo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi - Parma, 13-15 giugno 2002, Milan 2002, pp. 237-41, figs 1-2.