Francesco Mazzola detto il Parmigianino (Parma,... Lot n° 224

oil on copper, 48x33 cm, Provenance: John Scandrett Harford Collection esq. of Blase Castle, member of an eminent English family of bankers and art collectors; Agnews Gallery (London); Bristol Art Gallery London). Exhibitions: "Art Treasures of Manchester", 1857, exhibition catalogue no. 233; Bristol Art Gallery, exhibition of 1906. The work is accompanied by the expertise of Ch. J. Van der Does (Brussels, 20 March 1969) and that edited by Prof. Mario Buccio (Florence, 1975). Both assign it to the hand of Francesco Mazzola called Parmigianino. Copper, traditionally referred for its remarkable and unquestionable quality to the hand of the brilliant Mannerist from Parma, has been put back into the narrow context of the workshop by Davide Gasparotto and David Ekserijian, who thank them for their prompt intervention and for their admirable opinions on the work in question. At the origin of the painting lies the famous invention of Parmigianino, the panel better known as the "Madonna di Santa Margherita", executed around the end of the fourth decade of the sixteenth century and now admirable at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna. The subject of numerous copies and later derivations, our skillful author must have necessarily suffered the fascination of the Master, launching into a particularly ambitious emulation project and it will be said, successful, if we consider the soft chiaroscuro transitions and the drafting resolved in skilful liquidity of color. The attention to detail and the sophisticated treatment of the surfaces suggest a private destination for the work, justified also by the size of the copper that was probably born to be housed in the home of a refined collector of the time.