Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Annunciation to the Virgin, in a Lunette

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli
approximately 1500-1569

Annunciation to the Virgin, in a Lunette

8 x 13 3/8 inches (204 x 339 mm)
Pen and brown ink and wash, lead white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on laid paper; incised with stylus and compass.
1999.1

Purchased on the Edwin Herzog Fund.

Notes
Before entering Mariette's collection, this drawing belonged to Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), a wealthy banker who was a close friend and fellow collector. In the catalogue of the Crozat sale, compiled by Mariette himself, the sheet was described as a "capital drawing" by the celebrated Mannerist Parmigianino. Only in the twentieth century have scholars recognized in this work the hand of Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, a painter whose reputation had been forgotten in Mariette's time but who was one of Parmigianino's most talented successors in sixteenth century Parma. -- Exhibition Label, from "Pierre-Jean Mariette and the Art of Collecting Drawings."
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed at lower right, in pen and brown ink: "francesco Parmesan"; to the right of this, in darker ink: "3"; on verso, at lower edge, in graphite: "Vte[te superscript] Mariette No[o superscript] 504 300 livres"; on separate piece of paper pasted in lower right corner of verso, stamped in black ink and underlined in red ink: "278".
Watermark: Possibly letters "GH" with trefoil above on drawing, and stem with "grapes" at end (probably in lining?). Partly indecipherable because of lining.
Associated names
Crozat, M. (Pierre), 1661-1740, former owner.
La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Charles-Frédéric, marquis de, 1694-1775, former owner.
Mariette, Pierre-Jean, 1694-1774, former owner.
Destailleur, Hippolyte Alexandre Gabriel Walter, 1822-1893, former owner.
Beurdeley, Alfred, 1847-1919, former owner.
Bibliography
Rhoda Eitel-Porter and and John Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2019, no. 83.
Selected references: Popham 1964, no. 25; Copertini 1968, 125n2; Popham and Di Giampaolo 1971, no. 16; Di Giampaolo et al. 1979, no. 18; Di Giampaolo 1997, no. 118.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department