Active primarily as a fresco painter in Parma and his native Brescia, the Lombard-born artist Latanzio Gambara worked with Giulio Campi and Girolamo Romanino. The frescoes in the nave of the cathedral of Parma, carried out in collaboration with Bernardino Gatti between 1567 and 1573 are his most important work. Influenced by Correggio, whose example shaped the course of painting in Parma and its environs for much of the sixteenth century, Gambara combined a richly saturated, luminous palette with muscular, graceful yet energetically posturing figures. This handsome study of a male figure seen from the rear mounting a cloud shows Gambara's mastery of chalk, here used to describe volume and anatomical form, and attests to the foundation in drawing that underlies his multifigured compositions. Squared for transfer, the study is preparatory for one of the prophets in the lower register of Gambara's fresco decoration of the nave of the Parma cathedral.
Rust, David E., former owner.