About the Work
This small-format panel painting by the Italian master Parmigianino shows a young woman sitting elegantly on the forest floor. She is accompanied by two nude boys, putti or angels, who are busy with a palm frond. The young woman is holding a twig in her left hand in a delicate gesture; her robe of white and brown fabric falls gracefully around her body. The scene is so charming that we scarcely notice how overdrawn the young woman's legs are, or that the head of the boy on the right-hand edge of the picture is extremely overwrought. Parmigianino consciously sacrificed the proportions in favour of artistic expression and a composition which links all three figures together.
About the Acquisition
The donor of this picture was Baroness Emilie Margarethe Beaulieu-Marconnay, née Grunelius (1841–1929). She came from a long-established Frankfurt banking family which consistently distinguished itself by its extremely generous endowments to social and educational causes, as well as to the benefit of Frankfurt’s cultural life.
