Madonnas with a Long Neck by Parmigianino

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

This artist was named Francesco Mazzola. According to a common custom in his time, he was called according to the name of his hometown, Parma. He is therefore especially known as il Parmigianino.

Painter, fresco maker, draftsman, etcher, he practiced all the graphic techniques of his time mostly to represent religious subjects. He was among the first to distort the body, starting with his own: his self portrait in a convex mirror, a work of his youth (he was 20 years old, 1523-1524), attests to his interest in the study of forms.

His most frequent subject was the Virgin and Child, to which he gave a rather disturbing look. The Madonna is characterized by a long and fragile neck and it is hard to imagine why he did it so. The child, although naked in the arms of his mother, is no longer a baby. Could we see in Parmigianino a precursor of the great extensions of Greco? Certainly not, as some examples of his art show a horizontal elongation of the child that contradicts the vertical extension of the mother.

No matter that these works are no longer in the fashion of our time, they had their role in art history.

The Madonna with the long neck that is at the Uffizi Museum in Florence is one of his largest paintings (2.16 x 1.32 m), dated 1535. On March 25, Sotheby's sells in Paris a preparatory drawing for this painting. An estimated 500 K €.

NOTE: The date of sale has been changed to March 25. Initially, this article indicated a different date.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Very good result for this drawing, rewarding its role in art history: 780 K € premium included.