Design for an Architectural Decoration: Two Boys Holding up a Circular Frame within which is a sketch of the Virgin in Glory

Coreggio

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Vasari Coreggio. The drawing shows a circular design in a frame supported by two stone cherubs. The cherubs are standing on a ledge, at the centre of which is a piece of architectural decoration with a hemisphere and wreath. The design itself shows a woman - assumed to be the Virgin Mary - emerging from clouds. The text in the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society groups Nos. 16, 17 and 18 together. The text reads: "Nos. 16, 17, 18 CORREGGIO (ANTONIO ALLEGRI) (b. about 1494; d. 1534 No. 16. AN APOSTLE OR SAINT AMONG CLOUDS, WITH TWO CHERUBS. Diam. 15 cm. (5 7/8 in.) No. 17. DESIGN FOR AN ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION: TWO BOYS HOLDING UP A CIRCULAR FRAME WITHIN WHICH IS A SKETCH OF THE VIRGIN IN GLORY 19 x 14 cm. (7 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.) No. 18. DESIGN FOR AN ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION: TWO BOYS HOLDING UP AN EMPTY CIRCULAR FRAME 20.6 X 13.8 cm. (8 1/8 X 5 3/8 in.) Collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. All three in red chalk with white body-colour and grey wash. These are charming examples of a technical method used by Correggio in a few of his finest drawings. He models by rubbing opaque white over a red chalk sketch, so that the white takes up more or less of the chalk and gives a pink tone over all except in the strongest lights, and then adds touches of grey wash for the shadows. The finest example of the style is the Nativity in the Earl of Pembroke's Collection (reproduced by the late S. Arthur Strong, Drawings of the Old Masters at Wilton House, with several other minor studies in the same method). None of the three present examples from Chatsworth can be identified as a study for any extant work of the master. No. 16 is entirely in the spirit, and doubtless belongs to the date, of the Saints and Apostles in the concave pendentives below the dome of the Cathedral of Parma; but none of those paintings repeats this design, and the fields they fill are of a different shape. In the two companion drawings, which show a pair of cherubs each supporting a circular frame, it would have been tempting to see a first idea, afterwards abandoned, for the decoration of the space between and below the round windows in the octagonal tambour of the same dome. But the rounds in the drawings cannot have been meant for windows, since, though one of them is left bank, the other contains a sketch for a picture of (apparently) the Virgin floating among clouds and cherubs. S. C."