_Correggio_ (Parmese: 1494-1534). _See_ 10.
A celebrated work of the master, and one of the principal treasures of
the National Gallery--"a little gem of extraordinary tenderness," Mengs
calls it; and Frizzoni, "an incomparable marvel of light, vivacity,
and smiling sweetness." Alike in sentiment and in technique, it is
very characteristic. A comparison of it with Raphael's great Madonna
or any of those of the earlier masters (_e.g._ Bellini) will show in
a moment wherein the peculiarity of Correggio consists. The mother
has none of the rapt look of the woman who "laid these things in her
heart," and the child has no prophetic sense of future suffering. There
is nothing to mark the picture as representing the Holy Family except
the introduction of Joseph, the carpenter, in the background. It is a
picture painted solely in the "religion of humanity," and full only of
artless grace and melodious tenderness. The child is full of play and
fun; the mother (with the household basket which gives the picture its
name--"La Vierge au panier") is dressing him, and has just succeeded
in putting his right arm through the sleeve of his little coat, and
is endeavouring by gentle stratagem to do the same with the left;
but something has caught his fancy, and she shares in his delight,
smiling with all a young mother's fondness at the waywardness of her
curly-haired boy. "As a painting," says Sir Edward Poynter, "it is one
of those masterpieces of perfect technicality, of brilliant purity of
lighting and colouring, and of completeness of modelling in the flesh
tints, combined with the utmost apparent ease of execution, which may
well be the despair of painters for all time. As a design it is no
less remarkable; for though of studied harmony in the arrangement of
the forms it is so natural that all appearance of effort is lost, and
we cannot conceive of the scene as being rendered in a more artless
manner" (_The National Gallery_, i. 4).
The date of this picture is uncertain. Some, liking to find in it a
piece of the painter's own home-life, have dated it 1521-22, that is
just after the birth of Correggio's first child. Others put it earlier
in the artist's career, 1518. It is perhaps the picture which Vasari
describes as in the possession of the Cavaliere Baiardi of Parma--"a
marvellous and beautiful work by Correggio, in which Our Lady puts a
little shirt on the Infant Christ." It was afterwards in the royal
collection at Madrid, from which it passed by the gift of Charles IV.
to Don Emanuele Goday, at whose instance it was subjected to a most
rigorous cleaning. During the French invasion of Spain it fell into
various hands, and in 1825 was bought for the National Gallery from Mr.
C. J. Nieuwenhuys for £3800--a sum, it has been calculated, that would
"cover the little panel with sovereigns just twenty-seven times over."