FRANCESCO MAZZOLA called PARMIGIANINO

Parma 1503 - Casalmaggiore 1540

Portrait of Man holding a book inscribed “Franc. P.”

Oil on panel

66 x 41 cm

Inscribed on the back: “1526 A DJ P° DI MA.ZO/ ERA DI AN[N]I 28”

With a label ‘GOVERNATORATO VATICANO’ and No. 52 over a papal crest, on the back, and inventory No. 2

PROVENANCE:

Possibly the work described in the 1680 inventory of Palazzo del Giardino in Parma;

Sotheby’s Milan, 18th March 1987, lot. 688;

Private Collection, Lugano

LITERATURE:

Giuseppe Cirillo, Dipinti e disegni inediti del Cinquecento parmense a proposito del nuovo catalogo della Galleria Nazionale, in “Parma per l’arte”, 4-5 1999, pp.7-31;

Sylvie Béguin, Mysterious Parmigianino, in S.Beguin, M. Di Giampaolo e M. Vaccaro, Parmigianino: The Drawings, trad. it., Turin 2000, pp.9-27;

Sylvie Béguin, Portrait d’homme tenant un petit Pétrarque par Parmigianino, in “Artibus et historiae” 43, 2001, pp.9-16;

Maria Christina Chiusa, Parmigianino, Milan 2001, pp.185-193;

Mary Vaccaro, Parmigianino I Dipinti, Turin 2002, p.198, cat. 44;

Mario Di Giampaolo & Elisabetta Fadda,  Parmigianino. Il catalogo completo delle opere Santarcangelo di Romagna 2003, p. 61 cat. 16;

Vittorio Sqarbi,  Parmigianino, Milan 2003, p. 124;

Augusta Ghidiglia, Quintavalle, Parmigianino, Milan 2004, p. 80;

David Ekserdjian, Parmigianino, Yale University Press 2006, p. 134, fig. 139;

Caroline Vincenti Titien. Le pouvoir en face, exh. cat. Musée Luxembourg, Paris 2006. p.200

EXHIBITIONS:

PARIS 2006 Titien. Le pouvoir en face, Musée Luxembourg, Paris

The panel was painted in Rome, where the artist worked from 1524 until the Sack of the city in 1527, and the sitter is thought to have been from one of the leading families of Parma. The panel has been thought to correspond with one of the portraits listed in the Palazzo del Giardino inventories in Parma, many of them coming from the collection of the Farnese Pope Paul III who was elected in 1534.  Parmigianino frequently shows his sitters wearing velvet and fur-lined hats: Jane Bridgeman (Vaccaro 2002, p. 192/3) has shown that the similar one in the National Gallery Collector  - another Farnese picture - is characteristic of a nobleman, rather than an ecclesiastic. Only towards the end of the Seicento did this beretta quadra  become typical of priestly attire.  Gloves and a ring were given to lawyers on their graduation. The  leaders of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Parma were notorious for these cappellacci, who were sent to the papal courts in Milan and Rome in order to make representations on government (Bertini 2003/4, p. 116/120); Parmigianino conveys this sense of importance to his sitter. It has been suggested that the sitter could be a relative of the gentiluomo Cavalier Francesco Bajardi whose name has been associated with the National Gallery picture ‘suo molto familiare amico’ as Vasari described him (Vite ed Milanesi, V, p. 230), patron of the Steccata frescoes and of more than twenty of his paintings. The date and age of the inscription on the back of this panel (28 on the Ist March 1526) tell us that the sitter was born about 1598. 

First recognized in 1986 by the late Philip Pouncey, and exhibited for the first time here,  this work has been closely linked with the group of portraits painted for the Farnese family: the date written on the panel itself of 1526 is during Parmigianino’s stay in Rome (1524-27), where his skills astonished Clement VII. Sylvie Beguin related  it to other portraits with a book, like the National Gallery Collector  and the York Man with a Book,  both of 1524, and the Vienna Man Reading  (c. 1526/27)  and here interpreted it as a volume of Petrarch’s poetry. She also suggested its description follows that of one of Parmigianino’s portraits in the Farnese collection in 1708 (G. Bertini, La Galleria del Duca di Parma..., 1987, No. 263) The nature of the inscription (on the back cover of the book) has also prompted different interpretations, and the gloves  and ring could suggest it commemorates a qualification of the sitter, perhaps as a lawyer rather than in holy orders. The recent cleaning (Mazzocchini, London 2006) has brought out numerous minor pentimenti particularly around the hat and the book,  removed unnecessary overpainting contouring the hair and on the hands, and made clearer the ample folds of the robe and embroidered collar. The composition is reminiscent of the drawing of a Knight  in the Pushkin Museum (Drawings, 2000, pl. 80) that is linked to the Hannover ‘Niccolo Vespucci’ and illustrates the care with which Parmigianino prepared these portraits, and the variety of their design.