e a form of self portrait 3 . These two sheets are similar in scale and graphic style and probably date from the same period. Gnann lists the Louvre drawing amongst the works executed in Rome 1524-1526, but, more likely, Popham and to Dominique Cordellier place it in the later Parmese period, around 1535 onwards 4 . A third sheet formerly at Chatsworth, is also of interest for its scale and style; although a larger sheet as a whole, it shows a profile of a handsome, bearded man 5 exactly the size of the present head which itself, by the comparison with the Chatsworth drawing, seems like a cautionary tale of the progress of age. Parmigianino’s fascination with profile heads is evident from the wider group of such studies of single, double and multiple heads, all dated to the Roman period by Achim Gnann 6 , and mostly considered to be later by Cordellier and Popham. These heads of course reflect the artist’s engagement with the Antique with their echoes of Roman coinage and medals but are also reminiscent of late 15 th and early 16 th century portrait medals, occasionally feeling Leonardesque. A small sheet in the Nationalmuseum Stockholm 7 , like this drawing also from the Crozat collection, shows two heads which with their scroll like beards and strong expressions have elements of the present head; the same is true of two further single heads at Chatsworth, which have a similarly strange and fanciful spirit, one has a foliate ear and the other, a man in a feathered hat, the same curly hair 8 . David Ekserdjian in his article Parmigianino and the Antique wrote of the way that his drawings reveal an almost omnivorous interest in the art of contemporaries whilst also demonstrating that he was passionately and inventively interested in the antique 9 . This dialogue is clearly one of the animating forces behind the profile drawings, together with a fascination with comparative physiognomy which Martin Clayton refers to as perhaps being, as it was for Leonardo, a displacement activity, a substitute for real work 10 . In the present case, the mask also suggests an awful transmutation, something magical and ancient, perhaps alluding to Parmigianino’s unsuccessful alchemical experiments; as Dominique Cordellier writes in the recent exhibition catalogue: It would seem that unlike Dürer and Raphael, Parmigianino was one of those artists who, on reaching maturity, took on a manner that appeared strange to other people. 11 . While Vasari, in his biography, described him as losing, under this obsession, all that he had been earlier; he writes of a beard long and uncombed, hair overgrown and the impression given of a wild man, half crazed 12 . Though speculative, the dating of this fascinating drawing to Parmigianino’s very last years could make it vividly self-illustrative of the artist’s mercury-fuelled decline into madness. The small numerals inscribed in an 18 th century hand on the bottom right of the sheet, just to the left of the older attribution to Parmigianino, are identifiable as an inventory number from the collection of Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), the best known amateur of drawings of the 18 th century, treasurer to the King, patron of Watteau and purchaser, as agent, of the collection of Queen Cristina of Sweden. Relevant to the present work is the artist and collector Jonathan Richardson’s description of Crozat’s collection as cited in 1820 by the historian Henry Reveley, Mr. Richardson has observed, that though many [drawings] were slight, and others small, all were good 13 . 98
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Jean-Luc Baroni
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Jean-Luc Baroni Paintings Drawings
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5 Paintings
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Bartolomeo Manfredi Ostiano 1582 -
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4. Hieronymus II Francken, Cabinet
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Pier Francesco Mola Coldrerio, Tici
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Mattia Preti Taverna, Calabria 1613
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Painted at the age of 21, it is a w
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Rosalba Carriera Venice 1673 - 1757
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Gaetano Gandolfi Bologna 1734 - 180
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François-André Vincent Paris 1746
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Vincenzo Gemito Naples 1852 - 1929
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Francesco Paolo Michetti Tocco da C
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4 See Felice Stampfle, Giovanni Bat
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INDEX OF ARTISTs Baglione, Giovanni
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Jean-Luc Baroni ltd. 7-8 Mason’s