Girolamo Mirola - Venus and Cupid - image-1

Lot 2021 Dα

Girolamo Mirola - Venus and Cupid

Auction 1175 - overview Cologne
05.06.2021, 11:00 - Paintings and Drawings 15th to 19th C.
Estimate: 30.000 € - 40.000 €

Girolamo Mirola

Venus and Cupid

Oil on canvas (relined). 114 x 94 cm.

Inscribed on the stretcher: "No 213. Francesco Mazzuoli. Parmegiano pinx."
The present painting is closely related to one of the most famous and refined paintings of the Cinquecento, the "Madonna della Rosa" by Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino, which is now kept in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (see illustration). Elisabetta Fadda, who judges our painting to be unique and extremely interesting ("unico e di estremo interesse"), however, does not see it as a copy after Parmigianino at all, but attributes it to the Bolognese artist Girolamo Mirola, court painter to Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, due to the painterly quality and the iconographic peculiarities.
One of the reasons for the special interest roused by this painting lies in the transformation of the iconography from a spiritual subject, the Madonna and Child, in Parmigianino's work to the secular subject of "Venus and Cupid". Thus, the rose in the hand of Parmigianino's infant Jesus becomes an arrow in Mirola's version, which, together with the bow added at the bottom of the picture, allows for the figure's identification as Cupid.
It is possible that Parmigianino may also have intended his work to be a depiction of "Venus and Cupid" at the beginning; at least his first biographer Ireneo Affò (1741-1797) considers this a possibility. Affò mentions observations made by the painter Benigno Bossi (1727-1792) upon seeing Parmigianino's painting in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (cf. Ireneo Affò: Vita del graziosissimo pittore Francesco Mazzola detto il Parmigianino, Parma 1784, pp. 71f.). Bossi mentioned that he still saw traces of the wings of Cupid and the jewellery of Venus as pentimenti in Parmigianino's work. Elisabetta Fadda points out in her expertise that Parmigianino's painting underwent various restorations after Bossi saw it in the 18th century. These restorations could possibly have altered details which Bossi may still have been able to see that suggested an interpretation of the work as "Venus and Cupid".
Elisabetta Fadda dates the present painting to the first years of Girolamo Mirola's stay in Parma, around 1556, and compares it to a depiction of Venus with nymphs on a fresco by the artist in the Palazzo del Giardino in Parma. She considers it conceivable that our painting may have been created on occasion of a princely wedding in the House of Farnese.

Certificate

Elisabetta Fadda, undated.