Marriage of the Virgin

Prints and Drawings

c. 1575

Follower of Parmigianino
Italian, 1503-1540

Parmigianino’s assimilation of Raphael and the Roman School was very influential for the next generation of Mannerist draftsmen. This large and impressive sheet, once thought to be by Parmigianino himself, is freely derived from a drawing by him in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which relies heavily on Raphael’s Vatican frescoes.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Follower of Parmigianino
Title: Marriage of the Virgin
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1573–1577
Medium: Pen and brown ink with brush and blue wash, corrected with touches of lead white (partially oxidized), over black chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on ivory wove card
Inscriptions: Inscribed recto, lower left on mount, in graphite (in John Skippe's hand?): "parmigianino"
Dimensions: 26.9 × 42.2 cm (10 5/8 × 16 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. William O. Hunt
Reference Number: 1976.56
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/50390/manifest.json

Arthur Ewart Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, I (New Haven, 1971), p. 166.
Harold Joachim, Italian drawings of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries (Chicago, 1979), no. 4A4.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1997), p. 176, no. 228 (ill.).

London, Yvonne Tan Bunzl, 1975, cat. 7.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Italian Drawings in The Art Institute of Chicago,” 1979-1980, cat. 50, cat. by Harold Joachim and Suzanne Folds McCullagh; also traveled to Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art.
Kansas City, Mo., Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Three Centuries of Roman Drawings from The Villa Farnesina, Rome;” traveled to Sarasota, Fla., the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; and Pittsburgh, Pa., the Frick Art & Historical Center, 1993.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings Rediscovered: Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago,” April 10-July 22, 1997.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Broad Spectrum: Color on Paper, Past and Present,” September 12–October 31, 1999, hors. cat.

John Skippe (died 1811); by descent to his sister, Penelope Martin [London 1958]; by descent to her son, early 19th century [London 1958]; Martin family descendents; by descent to Edward Holland (died 1916) [London 1958]; by descent to his sister, Mrs. Rayner-Wood [London 1958]; by descent to her nephew, Edward Holland-Martin [London 1958]; sold, Christie’s, London, Nov. 20-21, 1958, lot. 146a, to Colnaghi [annotated sale catalogue]. John Brophy [Joachim 1979]. Yvonne Tan Bunzl, London, 1975 [Joachim 1979]. Sold by the Paul Drey Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute, 1976.

McCullagh & Giles 228

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