drawing

Correggio (Antonio Allegri) (in circa 1522-1523)

Thank you. Your question has been submitted.

Unfortunately something has gone wrong while sending your question. Please try again.

Request high-res image

Specifications

Title	drawing
Material and technique	Red chalk, brown wash, heightened with white, squared for transfer, on pink prepared paper
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 65 mm Width 116 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Correggio (Antonio Allegri)
Accession number	I 290 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1522-1523
Watermark	none (vV, ?P)
Inscriptions	'Antonio da Correggio' (on the removed backing paper, m.o., pen and brown ink)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	P. Lely (L.2092), W. Bateson (L.2604)
Provenance	Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680, L.2092)****, London; The Earls of Pembroke & Montgomery, their sale, London (Sotheby's) 09.07.1917, lot 410; Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London/Florence; William Bateson (1861-1926, L.2604a), London; his sale, London (Sotheby) 23.04.1929, lot 32a (BP 52 with I 291 in lot 32b to Beets); Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929; D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Amsterdam 1934, no. 531; Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 101C; Parma 2008, no. IV.19c; Rotterdam 2009 (coll 2 kw 5)
Internal exhibitions	De Collectie Twee - wissel V, Prenten & Tekeningen (2009)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Strong 1900, vol. IV, no. 35; Venturi 1902, pp. 355-57; Sturge Moore 1906, p. 263, no. 9; Vasari Society 1920-35, vol. II-1, no. 4; Ricci 1930, pp. 182-183 (Rondani); Amsterdam 1934, no. 531; Popham 1952, pp. 82, 84; Popham 1957, pp. 49, 155-56, no. 32; Fenyö 1959, p. 422; Ghidiglia Quintavalle 1962, p. 31; Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 101C; Ghidiglia Quintavalle 1965, p. 193; Toscano 1974, pp. 150-68 (Rondani); Gould 1976, pp. 74-75, 254, pl. 73B; Ercoli 1982, p. 134; De Grazia in Washington/Parma 1984, p. 98, no. 14; Di Giampaolo/Muzzi 1988, no. 41, ill.; Meijer 2003, pp. 103-104, fig. 9; Parma 2008, no. IV.19c, ill.; Fadda 2012, pp. 508, 513-14, fig. 11; Vaccaro 2018, pp. 385-86, 388, fig. 8
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Red chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Prepare > Prepared > Shaping techniques > General technique > Technique > Material and technique Prepare > Prepared > Shaping techniques > General technique > Technique > Material and technique Highlight > Painting technique > Technique > Material and technique Brown wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Squared > Squaring > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Squared > Squaring > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Do you have corrections or additional information about this work? Please, send us a message

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

In 1519-24 Correggio painted a large series of fresco decorations in the newly built church of San Giovanni Evangelista for the Benedictine monks of Parma.^[1]He first painted the decorations in the main dome (over the crossing), the choir vault and the semidome of the choir apse. However, most of the latter, the multi-figured Coronation of the Virgin, was lost as early as 1587 when the church was enlarged, and was immediately replaced by a copy in situ.^[2]Eight preparatory drawings of the central scene survived, among them the only composition study, the sheet that is now in Rotterdam (see I 381).^[3]At the end of 1521 Correggio also received an order for the 60-metre frieze on the three walls of the nave, along with the pilasters and the pendentives of the main dome. The frieze frescoes must have been painted in the spring and summer of 1522. It is obvious from the stylistic differences that they were not executed by him but by assistants working to his designs. Several of the preparatory drawings for those decorations have survived, four of which are in Rotterdam. They are studies for some of the seated sibyls and prophets flanking the central scenes of sacrifice (I 288-291).^[4] Additionally, in 2022 a previously anonymous red chalk drawing in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen was identified as a preliminary study for secondary figures in The Ascension of Christ fresco (I 429) in the main dome.

The continuous frieze decorations are situated above the six arches on either side of the nave, with one on the west wall. Each of the thirteen elongated compartments contains a central scene with a large group of figures standing around an altar, with a seated sibyl at far left and right and closed off with a prophet. Each of them holds a tablet with an abbreviated inscription in Latin or Greek. The subjects alternate between heathen and Jewish sacrificial offerings. Those compartments are separated from each other between the arches and above the pilasters by a standing scene of the same height with two full-length putti, most of them also holding a tablet.

There are extant preliminary drawings in red chalk of some of the flanking sibyls and prophets, including one each of the first, third, fourth and fifth compartments on the south wall.^[5] Those four small drawings, each of which was probably part of a larger sheet at one time, have been documented since the collection of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), and are now in Rotterdam. On the verso of one of them (I 289 v) there is a study of a seated putto with a palm branch and a cardinal’s hat at top left in the fresco with Sts Jerome and Matthew on the south-eastern pendentive of the dome, which must therefore have been drawn before the other sheets.^[6] The verso of another drawing (I 288 v) has a sketch for an altar and a head, and may be related to the frieze decorations. The functionality of the drawings is evident from the fact that three of them are squared for transfer to scale to the cartoons (I 289, 290, 291). Since Correggio was a very busy artist and had to complete the frescoes quickly, in the warmer and more humid ‘fresco season’ from spring to autumn 1522, he left most of the execution to his assistants, especially the relatively unknown local artist Francesco Maria Rondani (1490-before 1557). That, though, is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the preliminary studies.^[7]

Footnotes

^[1] Among other publications see Ghidiglia Quintavalle 1962, Quintavalle 1970, Gould 1976, Washington/Parma 1984, Ekserdjian 1997.

^[2] By Cesare Aretusi (1549-1612).

^[3]The other preliminary drawings for the fresco in the apse are in London, Courtauld Gallery, inv. D.1978.PG.352; Poitiers, Musée Sainte-Croix, inv. 882-I.187; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. WA.RS.STD.013; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 5918, 5943; Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, inv. 2100, 2101; Di Giampaolo/Muzzi 1988, nos. 28-35; Gould 1976, p. 65, figs. 41A-D, 42A-C.

^[4]The other (secure) preliminary drawings for the frieze scenes are now in London, British Museum, inv. 1895,0915.741 recto and verso (not online), 1902,0617.2, Frankfurt, Städel Museum, inv. 4110 recto and verso (not online), 4111 recto and 4111 verso, and Santiago de Chile, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, inv. DE 110; Vaccaro 2018, pp. 389-391, 393-395, figs. 19-21, 28-31.

^[5] Counting from the west, respectively inv. I 289, prophet left; inv. I 291, sibyl right; inv. I 290, sibyl right; inv. I 288, prophet left; Gould 1976, figs. 62-64; Di Giampaolo/Muzzi 1988, nos. 41-44, ill. (reproduced in black instead of red).

^[6] Gould 1976, figs. 73, 76B; Ekserdjian 1997, p. 107, fig. 107.

^[7] As is done by Fadda, the only author to regard the drawings as studio work; rejected with convincing arguments by Vaccaro 2017 and 2018.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Show catalogue entry Hide catalogue entry