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拍品專文
The beautiful example of Parmiginanino’s sophisticated mature style relates to the decoration of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma, a commission that the artist received in 1531 upon his return to Parma from a stay in Bologna. This important and large scale project in the center of his own home town should have been the highpoint of the artist’s career, yet it ended with his disgrace, temporary imprisonment and flight from the city (Popham, op. cit., 1971, I, pp. 22-25).
In May 1531 the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Steccata entrusted Parmigiano with the decoration of the eastern apse and the coffered barrel vault of their newly built church. The artist was to receive a payment of 400 scudi d’oro for the work which optimistically he promised to complete in only eighteen months. By November 1532 Parmigianino had received half the stipulated amount, but had executed little of the painted decoration. Eventually, some three years later, in 1535, a new contract was drawn up and a final extension was given to the artist in August 1539 since by that date the decoration of the apse had not even been begun. Vasari states that it was Parmigianino’s obsession with alchemy that prevented him from focusing his attention on the decoration of Santa Maria della Steccata. He writes that Parmigianino ‘began to abandon the work of the Steccata, or at least to carry it on so slowly that it was evident that he was not in earnest. And this happened because he had begun to study the problems of alchemy, and had quite deserted his profession of painting, thinking that he would become rich quicker by congealing mercury’ (G. Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, translated by G. du C. de Vere, New York, 1996, I, p. 941). After the long wait and given his slow progress on the work, the fabbricieri of the Confraternity, angered by the artist’s dilatoriness, had him imprisoned. Parmigianino was later formally dismissed and, after defacing part of the decoration in revenge for the arrest, he fled to Casalmaggiore, about eighteen miles from Parma, where he died not long afterwards. The commission for the apse was subsequently offered to Giulio Romano, and finally carried out by Michelangelo Anselmi.
Parmigianino was one of the most prolific draftsmen of the 16th Century, second only to Leonardo. Almost a thousand of his drawings survive. This sheet is one of several studies – mostly preserved in public collections – that can be connected with his work at Santa Maria della Steccata. The figure is close, although not identical (the drapery and the design of the amphora vary slightly), to one of the virgins on the right side of the vault (fig. 1). Inspired by classical sources, the figures had been originally conceived as purely decorative; it was only later on as the design evolved, probably at the insistence of the patrons, that the lamps were added to identify the figures as the Wise and Foolish Virgins of the Gospel. Other sheets with studies for the same canephoros are in the Louvre (inv. 6471), in the Albertina (inv. 2685), in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma (inv. 510/2), in Liverpool (inv. 1261) and in the Uffizi (inv. 1458 E; see Gnann, op. cit., I, nos. 822-826, II, ill.). Executed in different techniques and with different degrees of finish, they shed interesting light on Parmigianino’s working method (Pagliano, op. cit., pp. 42-43).
Fig. 1. Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Il Parmigianino, Three foolish Virgins. Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma.
In May 1531 the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Steccata entrusted Parmigiano with the decoration of the eastern apse and the coffered barrel vault of their newly built church. The artist was to receive a payment of 400 scudi d’oro for the work which optimistically he promised to complete in only eighteen months. By November 1532 Parmigianino had received half the stipulated amount, but had executed little of the painted decoration. Eventually, some three years later, in 1535, a new contract was drawn up and a final extension was given to the artist in August 1539 since by that date the decoration of the apse had not even been begun. Vasari states that it was Parmigianino’s obsession with alchemy that prevented him from focusing his attention on the decoration of Santa Maria della Steccata. He writes that Parmigianino ‘began to abandon the work of the Steccata, or at least to carry it on so slowly that it was evident that he was not in earnest. And this happened because he had begun to study the problems of alchemy, and had quite deserted his profession of painting, thinking that he would become rich quicker by congealing mercury’ (G. Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, translated by G. du C. de Vere, New York, 1996, I, p. 941). After the long wait and given his slow progress on the work, the fabbricieri of the Confraternity, angered by the artist’s dilatoriness, had him imprisoned. Parmigianino was later formally dismissed and, after defacing part of the decoration in revenge for the arrest, he fled to Casalmaggiore, about eighteen miles from Parma, where he died not long afterwards. The commission for the apse was subsequently offered to Giulio Romano, and finally carried out by Michelangelo Anselmi.
Parmigianino was one of the most prolific draftsmen of the 16th Century, second only to Leonardo. Almost a thousand of his drawings survive. This sheet is one of several studies – mostly preserved in public collections – that can be connected with his work at Santa Maria della Steccata. The figure is close, although not identical (the drapery and the design of the amphora vary slightly), to one of the virgins on the right side of the vault (fig. 1). Inspired by classical sources, the figures had been originally conceived as purely decorative; it was only later on as the design evolved, probably at the insistence of the patrons, that the lamps were added to identify the figures as the Wise and Foolish Virgins of the Gospel. Other sheets with studies for the same canephoros are in the Louvre (inv. 6471), in the Albertina (inv. 2685), in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma (inv. 510/2), in Liverpool (inv. 1261) and in the Uffizi (inv. 1458 E; see Gnann, op. cit., I, nos. 822-826, II, ill.). Executed in different techniques and with different degrees of finish, they shed interesting light on Parmigianino’s working method (Pagliano, op. cit., pp. 42-43).
Fig. 1. Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Il Parmigianino, Three foolish Virgins. Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma.