PORTRAITS OF CORREGGIO.
Correggio appears to have been far less solicitous than most other painters, that his likeness should be transmitted to posterity, for of him there is no unquestioned portrait extant. That which is prefixed to his life, in the Roman edition of Vasari, is evidently false, for it exhibits the head and countenance of a man aged seventy. It was taken from a collection of designs, in the possession of Father Resta, to one of which, representing a man and his wife with three sons and one daughter, in mean apparel, he gave the name of the Family of Correggio, forgetting that the family consisted of three daughters and one son.
Another portrait, with the title, Antonius Correggius, and consequently supposed to be painted by himself, was preserved in a villa which belonged to the Queen of Sardinia, near Turin, and engraved by Valperga; but its authenticity seems justly questioned by Lanzi and Pungileoni. A third, which was sent from Genoa to England, bore an inscription signifying that it was the portrait of Maestro Antonio da Correggio, by Dosso Dossi, and was accordingly engraved for the memoirs of Correggio by Ratti, who obtained a copy. Lanzi is inclined to infer, however, that it is the portrait of Antonio Bernieri, the miniature painter, who also bore the name of Antonio da Correggio.
A copy of this portrait is still preserved in the Pinacotheca Bodoniana, at Parma, and has been engraved, first by Asioli, and since as a medallion, by Professor Rocca, of Reggio. Pungileoni, who is inclined to consider it as genuine, has prefixed the medallion to his life of Correggio.
Tiraboschi and Pungileoni mention other supposed portraits and busts, of questionable authenticity; and Pungileoni, in particular, adverts to a portrait still preserved near a door of the cathedral at Parma, which is exhibited as a likeness of Correggio. It is supposed to have been copied in the middle of the seventeenth century, by Lattanzio Gambara, from a more ancient one of this celebrated painter, in another part of the cathedral; but its authenticity is questioned, merely on the ground that it represents a man of more advanced age than Correggio, who only attained his forty-first year.
DID CORREGGIO EVER VISIT ROME?
The question has been long agitated whether Correggio ever visited Rome, and profited by the study of the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo; on this point, the only historical evidence which has been adduced, is a tradition recorded by Father Resta, and said to have been derived through three generations, from the information of Correggio’s wife. As an authority so light and doubtful could not be seriously advanced, his biographers and admirers have sought in his works for more valid traces of the models to which he recurred. Mengs contends that his paintings exhibit proofs of an acquaintance with the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. In the head of the Danaë, he traces a resemblance to that of Venus de Medici; and in the St. Jerome, and Mercury teaching Cupid to read, he recognises imitations of the Farnese Hercules and the Apollo Belvidere; he also discovers a resemblance to one of the children of Niobe, in the young man who endeavors to escape from the soldiers, in the picture representing Christ betrayed in the garden. The countenance of the Magdalen, in the St. Jerome, he considers as an imitation of Raffaelle; and in the cupola of the church of St. John, he perceives a similitude to the grand style of Michael Angelo, in the frescos of the Vatican. In corroboration of this opinion, he adduces the sudden change which is perceived in the style of Correggio at an earlier period, as a proof that he must have seen and studied compositions superior to his own. Ratti, the copyist of Mengs, coincides with him in opinion. Lanzi cautiously adopts the same sentiment; and Tiraboschi, after comparing the testimony on both sides, leaves the question unsettled. We cannot decide with certainty, that Correggio never visited Rome, and yet there is no argument to prove that he ever saw that Capital. Pungileoni, with superior advantage of research, pronounces a contrary decision; and affirms, from the evidence of the continued series of unquestionable documents, in which his presence is mentioned at Parma, Correggio, and other parts of Lombardy, during a number of years, that even if he did visit Rome, his stay must have been limited to a very short period. Finally, this opinion is corroborated in the assertion of Ortensio Landi, who had resided some time at Correggio; and who, in his Sette Libri de Cataloghi, printed at Venice by Giolito, as early as 1552, says of Correggio, “He was a noble production of nature, rather than of any master: he died young, without being able to see Rome.” Were all other evidence wanting, this testimony of a cotemporary, who must have collected his information on the spot, and who published it within eighteen years after the death of Correggio, must be allowed to carry great weight.
SINGULAR FATE OF CORREGGIO’S ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.
A few days before the entry of the French into Seville, during the Peninsular war, when the inhabitants in great consternation were packing up their most valuable effects to send them to Cadiz, a masterpiece of Correggio, in one of the convents, representing the Adoration of the Shepherds, painted on wood, was sawn in two, for its more easy carriage to a place of safety, to preserve it from the enemy. By some accident, the two parts were separated on their way to Cadiz; and on their arrival in that city, one part was sold to one connoisseur, with the promise that the part wanting should subsequently be delivered to him; while the other part was sold to another connoisseur under the same engagement. Both the parts arrived in England, and the possessor of each maintained that he was entitled to the other.
It is somewhat remarkable that though the harmony of the picture is somewhat broken by the separation, yet each part forms of itself an admirable picture, and as the rival proprietors are rich and obstinate, the parts are not likely to be united. The whole picture is reckoned to be worth about 4,000 guineas.