Parmigianino (1503–1540)

Trois crayons Newsletter, April 2024

Can we fool you? The term “fake” may be slightly sensationalist when it comes to old drawings. Copying originals and prints has formed a key part of an artist’s education since the Renaissance and with the passing of time the distinction between the two can be innocently mistaken.

Both of these drawings were at one point in the collection of the dukes of Devonshire at Chatsworth, although one of them was sold through Christie’s in 1984 and has now left the collection. One drawing is a direct copy of the other, made in England no more than a century after the production of the original. At the time the time of the copy’s production however, the original had not yet reached the Devonshire collection and so it was by chance that the two drawings were united some years later at Chatsworth.

• ANSWER

  The original, of course, is on the right (the lower image if you are viewing on mobile). It is by Parmigianino and is currently in a private collection, although, as noted above, it was formerly in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth (see A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, I, 210, no. 723. Pen and ink, 165 x 118 mm)

  The drawing on the left is by Inigo Jones (see Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection. Vol. X, 44, no. 192. Pen and brown ink, 130 x 88 mm).

  Jones often copied details from the prints in his own collection, however on this occasion he created a nearly exact copy of an entire drawing by Parmigianino. Jones never owned the Parmigianino drawing however and it is likely that he saw the sheet whilst it was in the Arundel collection, where the drawing was also etched (in reverse) by Lucas Vorsterman. The drawing then passed from Arundel into the Chatsworth collection. Much of Jones’s own collection, including his copy of the Parmigianino, passed to John Webb and then to Lord Burlington and finally to the Duke of Devonshire, where Parmigianino’s original and Jones’ copy were united. Now, it is only Jones’ copy that remains at Chatsworth, the Parmigianino having been sold in 1984.