The Head of a Child - a fragment

The facial type of this child, as well as the handling of the paint, both suggest that it is by Correggio. It appears to date from the artist's maturity, and was probably executed in the first half of the 1520s, when Correggio was fully established in Parma, and engaged on the frescoes for the dome and apse of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista there. The present fragment was presumably originally part of a larger whole, and it seems most likely that the composition in question represented the Virgin and Child, conceivably accompanied by the infant Saint John the Baptist.

The present picture will be included in David Ekserdjian's forthcoming monograph on Correggio.