London’s National Gallery is finally unveiling the U.K.’s only Parmigianino altarpiece on the occasion of the institution’s 200th anniversary. The early Mannerist master’s towering The Madonna and Child With Saints (1525-27) will resurface after 10 years of conservation in the exhibition “Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome.” Eight preparatory sketches will supplement Parmigianino’s 12-foot-tall feat of oil painting.
Born Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola in 1503, Parmigianino was later named for his Italian hometown of Parma. He grew up among painters, but already stood apart by the time he was in his 20s. Pope Clement VII personally received Parmigianino upon his 1524 arrival in Rome. The artist’s taste for idealized beauty and sumptuous hues earned him a reputation as Raphael’s heir apparent.
Parmigianino, (1526-7). © The National Gallery, London. Presented by the Directors of the British Institution, 1826.
As Giorgio Vasari’s famous story from the Sack of Rome goes, Charles V’s troops were so taken with this very painting upon storming his studio that they decided to just let him work. Parmigianino had been at work on the piece since 1526, when noblewoman Maria Bufalini commissioned it for her husband and father-in-law’s burial chapel at Rome’s San Salvatore in Lauro. Parmigianino put his all into this big break.
In the ensuing nine-month occupation, was stowed in the refectory of Santa Maria della Pace, and Parmigianino moved home, where he died in 1530. In her will, Bufalini had included instructions to have the altarpiece framed and installed, but her great-nephew only brought it to their family headquarters of Città di Castello 30 years later. The work remained in their chapel at the church of Sant’Agostino until about 1772, when it was replaced with a copy and sent to their palazzo. The National Gallery acquired it in 1826, two years after the museum’s founding.
Parmigianino, (1526-27). © The Trustees of the British Museum
The past decade’s conservation efforts have revivified the artwork and adorned it with a new, period-appropriate frame. The painting’s lush greenery, striking light, and bold bodily movements might even distract viewers from its most uncommon feature—the slumbering Saint Jerome.
“Numerous interpretations for this figure have been put forward,” curator Maria Alambritis explained over email of this “unusual” element. “After deciding on an asymmetrical arrangement for the saints—bringing the Baptist forward and reclining Jerome into the middle distance—the most plausible state for Jerome to be depicted in was asleep,” she wrote.
Parmigianino, (1525-27). © Image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program
On the other hand, the figure also vaguely resembles the Vatican’s Greco-Roman copy of , which Parmigianino may have seen. Furthermore, his decision could symbolically reference the dream state’s more mystical nature, and its role as “the cousin of death.” See the skull, a prop appropriate for a burial chamber, nestled near the sleeping saint’s knee.
Five institutions have lent sketches to round out the showcase, including Los Angeles’s J. Paul Getty Museum—which tangled with the British government in 2017 over another Parmigianino that had long been on view at the National Gallery. A new catalogue, rich with new scholarship, also commemorates the occasion.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
