From 5 December 2024 to 9 March 2025, the National Gallery celebrates the first public display in a decade, following conservation, of a masterpiece of Italian Mannerism, Parmigianino’s “Madonna and Child with Saints”, also known as ‘The Vision of Saint Jerome’. It is the only major altarpiece by Parmigianino in UK collections.
Source: National Gallery · Image: Parmigianino’s “Madonna and Child with Saints” (detail)
‘The Madonna and Child with Saints’ was undertaken by Parmigianino when he was just 23 years old during his brief period in Rome, where he worked from 1524-‒27. It was intended to adorn a chapel in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro belonging to the Caccialupi, a family of noted church officials. Depicting a Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome at her feet, it was an important public commission for the young artist, but it was to be his first and the only one he finished in Rome.
According to Giorgio Vasari, Parmigianino was at work on this very altarpiece in 1527 during the disastrous Sack of Rome. When the imperial troops of Charles V broke into his studio, they were so amazed by what they saw that they allowed him to continue, demanding he make drawings for them in exchange for leaving him unharmed. Parmigianino eventually fled Rome, never to see his greatest achievement to date installed. The painting was hidden away for safekeeping, and only recovered long after the artist’s death when it was transferred by the patron’s heirs to their family church in Città di Castello.
Parmigianino was one of the most exemplary and prolific draughtsmen of the 16th century. The numerous surviving preparatory drawings for the altarpiece demonstrate his restless creative dedication to the project. This focused exhibition reunites for the first time a selection of these with the painting. From atmospheric, velvety chalk studies to spritely, swirling pen and ink sketches, it offers an unique opportunity to rediscover the painting from early concept ideas to meticulously finished final designs, illuminating the artist’s dynamic visual thinking through the elegant vivacity of his line and mastery across a variety of media.
