Parmigianino

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Parmigianino

1503-1540

Prometheus Animating Man

ca. 1524-1527

Pen and brown ink and wash, over black chalk on paper. Repair at lower right, near Prometheus' knee.

5 3/8 x 6 1/16 inches (135 x 154 mm)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

IV, 45

Notes:

Watermark: none.

Inscription:

Inscribed on mount in graphite, "1686"; on verso of drawing, top right corner, beneath hinge, in pen and ink, "23".

Provenance:

Baron Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747-1825), Paris (Lugt 780, lower right [some references incorrectly cite the mark as Lugt 779]); his sale 1826, no. 368 bought by Perignon (for 69 francs); Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830; Lugt 2445), London (according to Fairfax Murray); Count Nils Barck (1820-1896), Paris and Madrid (Lugt 1959, blind stamp lower left); Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.

Associated names:

Denon, Vivant, 1747-1825, former owner.
Lawrence, Thomas, Sir, 1769-1830, former owner.
Barck, Nils, Comte, 1820-1896, 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.

Bibliography:

Selected references: Duval 1829, 3: 160; Fairfax Murray 1905-12, 4: no. 45; Ames 1951, no. 33; Raggio 1958, 57; Popham 1971, 1: 124, no. 320; Nijmegen 1983, 13; Boston and elsewhere 1989, 7-8, no. 2; Reed 1991, 70-72; Paris 1999-2000, no. 555; London and New York 2000-01, 144, no. 95; Jacobs 2005, 123; Ekserdjian 2006, 108; Gnann 2007, 1: 396, no. 300; New York 2007, 15.
Amaury Duval, Monuments des Arts du Dessin chez les peuples tant anciens que modernes, recueillis par le Baron Vivant Denon [...] pour servir à l'histoire des arts, lithographiés par ses soins et sous ses yeux, décrits et expliqués par Amaury Duval, 4 vols., Paris, 1829, vol. 3, repr. p. 160.
Charles Fairfax Murray, Collection of Drawings by the Old Masters formed by C. Fairfax Murray (J. Pierpont Morgan Collection), 4 vols., London 1905-1912, vol. 4, no. 45, repr. Six Centuries of Master Drawings, Thirteenth Annual Fine Arts Festival, exh. cat., State University of Iowa, Ames, 1951, no. 33.
Olga Raggio, "The Myth of Prometheus," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21, 1958, p. 57, pl. 8c.
A. E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, 3 vols., New Haven, 1971, vol. 1, p. 124, no. 320; vol. 3, pl. 271.
Ronald Tolman, introductory essay, Prometheus beelden en prenten, exh. cat., Museum of the Commanderie of St. Jan, Nijmegen, 1983, p. 13, fig. 3.
Sue Welsh Reed and Richard Wallace, Italian Etchers of the Renaissance & Baroque, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1989, pp. 7-8, no. 2, repr.
Sue Welsh Reed, "Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's God Creating Adam, the Tirst Masterpiece in the Monotype medium," Museum Studies of the Art Institute of Chicago 17, no. 1, 1991, pp. 70-72.
Dominique-Vivant Denon, L'oeil de Napoléon, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1999-2000, no. 555, repr.
Hugo Chapman and Carmen C. Bambach, Drawings of Correggio and Parmigianino in English and American Collections, exh. cat., British Museum, London, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000-2001, p. 144, no. 95, repr.
Fredrika H. Jacobs, The Living Image in Renaissance Art, Cambridge, United Kingdon, 2005, pp. 123, fig. 41.
Achim Gnann, Parmigianino: Die Zeichnungen, 2 vols., Petersberg, 2007, vol. 1, p. 396, no. 300; vol. 2, repr. p. 262.
Isabelle Dervaux, Drawing connections: Baselitz, Kelly, Penone, Rockburne, and the Old Masters, exh. cat., The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2007, p. 15, repr. p. 20.

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