The drawing seems to depict a Garden of Love, with Cupid atop the fireplace shooting arrows, figures embracing female trees/caryatids at left (Apollo and Daphne?), and seated couples in the foreground. In Richardson’s day the drawing was given to Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, disciple of Parmigianino and husband of the latter’s cousin. This attribution was subsequently rejected, and the drawing reclassified as anonymous, before Mary Vaccaro argued that the drawing again should be given to Bedoli. See Vaccaro, "Collaborazione nella Bottega dei Mazzola Bedoli, disegni tra padre e figlio," Aurea Parma II-III May-December 2018: 185-215.
Watermark: none visible through lining.
Formerly attributed to Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, Viadana ca. 1500-1569 Parma.
Inscribed on mount, at lower center, beneath drawing, in pen and brown ink, "Girolamo Mazzuoli"; above this, in graphite, "Parmegianino"; on verso of mount, in pen and brown ink, by Richardson or an amanuensis, "Girolamo Mazzuoli was either Brother or Cozin of Francesco, & painted with him, / & finished what He left of the Church of the Virgin of the Steccata at Parma, / after his Death, of which the Present Drawing is One Study, in order to unite with / so many Others of the "Same Form."; on verso of mount, in lower right corner, in red chalk, "745".
Parmigianino, 1503-1540, Formerly attributed to.
Anonymous, Italian School, 16th cent., Formerly attributed to.
Richardson, Jonathan, 1665-1745, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.
Selected references: Fairfax Murray 1905-12, 4: no. 49 (as Parmigianino).
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, IV, 49, repr. (as Parmigianino)