(Bologna? 1530/35–1570 Parma)
Venus and Cupid,
oil on canvas, 112 x 94 cm, framed

Inscribed on the stretcher: No 213…Parmegiano pinx.

We are grateful to Elisabetta Fadda for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for her help in cataloguing the present painting. She dates this work to around 1556.

The present composition relates to the celebrated Madonna della Rosa by Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called il Parmigianino, painted around 1530 during his stay in Bologna, now conserved in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. However, in the present painting there are variations in the composition and the iconography, notably the Christ Child in the Parmigianino painting is here transformed into Cupid and the Madonna is here portrayed as Venus, thereby making the present work of singular interest.

Interestingly, according to Ireneo Affò, the author of the first monograph on the artist, Parmigianino initially intended to represent a Venus and Cupid instead of the composition of the Madonna and Child in the Madonna della Rosa (see I. Affò, Vita del graziosissimo pittore Francesco Mazzola detto il Parmigianino, Parma, Carmignani 1784). As he states, ‘the artist’s first thought, which was to represent a Venus and Cupid, can be glimpsed;…the wings at the shoulders of the Putto can still be seen and we can make out certain flourishes at the arms and ornaments at the forehead of the Virgin, that are faithful witnesses to the artist’s pentimento, whereby from a Venus he made a Virgin and from a Cupid a Christ Child’ [‘si scorge il primo pensier del pittore, il quale fu di rappresentare Venere e Cupido; ...si raffigurano ancora le ali alle spalle del Putto, e si comprendono certi smanigli alle braccia e certi ornamenti al capo della Vergine, che fanno pienissima fede del pentimento del depintore, che di una Venere fece una Nostra Donna, e di un Cupido formò un Gesù Bambino’].

According to Fadda, the painterly quality of the composition in the present picture indicates that it is the work of Girolamo Mirola, principal painter at the court of Ottavio Farnese in Parma. She has suggested dating this work to the early years of Girolamo Mirola’s sojourn in Parma during which time he collaborated with Pellegrino Tibaldi and where he is documented from 1556. The figure of Venus in the present painting compares closely to the nymphs depicted in a fresco by Mirola in the Palazzo del Giardino in Parma, and the figure of Cupid seen here, corresponds to the Cupid painted at the same time for Ottavio Farnese in Parma by Gerolamo Mazzola Bedoli.