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MICHELANGELO ANSELMI
Lucca or Siena 1492 ~ 1555 Parma
After
Correggio and Parmigianino, Michelangelo Anselmi was the third most important artist active in Parma in the sixteenth century. He is thought to have come from a Parmese family which had moved to Siena prior to his
birth. His early training was, therefore, with Sodoma in Siena. By 1520 Anselmi was back in Parma where he worked next to Correggio and Parmigianino in the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista. Here his contract was
to decorate the cross-vaults of the nave. The date of 1521 is found on the apse of the north transept which he frescoed together with the south transept in that year.[1] However, Anselmi's graphic style was not dependent on the sfumato of Correggio but was directly influenced by his teacher, Sodoma, whose work in turn shows strong reminiscences of Leonardo da Vinci.[2]
Our drawing may represent one of the four cardinal virtues,
Prudence, as the mother and child are both looking into her mirror. The date which has been suggested for our sheet is circa 1526.[3] Anselmi's drawings are very rare and most of them are already in public collections including several in the British Museum.
1. Diane Degrazia, Correggio and His Legacy, Sixteenth Century Emilian Drawings, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1984, pp.194 to
207.
2. D. Degrazia, Nell'Età di Correggio e dei Carracci, pittura in Emilia dei secoli xvi e xvii, exh. cat. Bologna, Washington & New York, 1996, p.53.
3. The attribution to Anselmi has been confirmed by Mario di Giampaolo.
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