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Lot Essay
David Ekserdjian dates the present drawing to Parmigianino's second Parmese period, from his arrival from Bologna in 1530 following the promise of a commission in Santa Maria della Steccata until his death in 1540. The drawing is a larger and more finished development of a study in Budapest (A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, no. 28, pl. 416). Popham suggests that drawing may be connected with the sheet of Two lovers in a wood (A.E. Popham, op. cit., no. 612), which is preliminary to Parmigianino's famous etching often called Venus and Adonis (Bartsch XVI, 14).
As Jo Hedley has commented, in comunication with Dr. Ekserdjian, the composition is closely derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after Posture 10 of Giulio Romano's Modi. The Modi were designed by Giulio in 1524 as part of a joint venture with Marcantonio Raimondi, who was to make engravings of the drawings. The twenty plates were described by Vasari as 'showing all the various ways, attitudes, and positions in which licentious men have intercourse with women', and were published together with accompanying scandalous sonnets by Pietro Aretino (R. Aste, 'Giulio Romano as designer of erotica', in Giulio Romano, Master Designer, exhib. cat., New York, Hunter College, 1999, p. 44). The explicit images caused such scandal in Pope Clement VII's Rome that the prints and drawings were destroyed, and the compositions are only known through copies, for example the series by J.-F.-M. de Waldeck, published circa 1858, for which Posture 10 is illustrated in D. Ekserdjian, op. cit., fig. 92.
Parmigianino's interest in amorous and erotic subjects is constant throughout his short career, but increases noticeably in the later years. It is possible that this may have been encouraged on the artist's return to Parma by patrons such as Cavaliere Francesco Baiardo, for whom he painted such playful subjects as the Cupid now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (A.E. Popham, op. cit., fig. 44).
As Jo Hedley has commented, in comunication with Dr. Ekserdjian, the composition is closely derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after Posture 10 of Giulio Romano's Modi. The Modi were designed by Giulio in 1524 as part of a joint venture with Marcantonio Raimondi, who was to make engravings of the drawings. The twenty plates were described by Vasari as 'showing all the various ways, attitudes, and positions in which licentious men have intercourse with women', and were published together with accompanying scandalous sonnets by Pietro Aretino (R. Aste, 'Giulio Romano as designer of erotica', in Giulio Romano, Master Designer, exhib. cat., New York, Hunter College, 1999, p. 44). The explicit images caused such scandal in Pope Clement VII's Rome that the prints and drawings were destroyed, and the compositions are only known through copies, for example the series by J.-F.-M. de Waldeck, published circa 1858, for which Posture 10 is illustrated in D. Ekserdjian, op. cit., fig. 92.
Parmigianino's interest in amorous and erotic subjects is constant throughout his short career, but increases noticeably in the later years. It is possible that this may have been encouraged on the artist's return to Parma by patrons such as Cavaliere Francesco Baiardo, for whom he painted such playful subjects as the Cupid now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (A.E. Popham, op. cit., fig. 44).