| Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror | |
|---|---|
| Italian: Autoritratto entro uno specchio convesso | |
 | |
| Artist | Parmigianino |
| Year | c. 1524 |
| Type | Oil on convex panel |
| Dimensions | 24.4 cm diameter (9.6 in) |
| Location | Kunsthistorisches Museum |
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (c. 1524) is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
The work is mentioned by Late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, who lists it as one of three small-size paintings that the artist brought to Rome with him in 1525. Vasari relays that the self-portrait was created by Parmigianino as an example to showcase his talent to potential customers. [1]
The portrait was donated to pope Clement VII, and later to writer Pietro Aretino, in whose house Vasari himself, then still a child, saw it. It was later acquired by Vicentine sculptor Valerio Belli and, after his death in 1546, by his son Elio. Through the intercession of Andrea Palladio, in 1560 the work went to Venetian sculptor Alessandro Vittoria, who bequeathed it to emperor Rudolf II. It arrived in Prague in 1608, and later it became part of the Habsburg imperial collections in Vienna (1777), although attributed to Correggio.
The painting depicts the young artist (then twenty one) in the middle of a room, distorted by the use of a convex mirror. The hand in the foreground is greatly elongated and distorted by the mirror. The work was painted on a specially-prepared convex panel in order to mimic the curve of the mirror used.
Mannerism, also known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, best known for his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing. Based on Vasari's text about Giotto's new manner of painting, Jules Michelet suggested for the first time the term Renaissance in his Histoire de France (1835), a term adopted by historiography and still in use today.
John Lawrence Ashbery was an American poet and art critic.
Jacopo Carucci, usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. His work represents a profound stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective; his figures often seem to float in an uncertain environment, unhampered by the forces of gravity.
Properzia de' Rossi was an Italian Renaissance sculptor. She studied under the Bolognese artist and master engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who is best known today for his engravings after paintings by Raphael.
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino, was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. His work is characterized by a "refined sensuality" and often elongation of forms and includes Vision of Saint Jerome (1527) and the iconic if somewhat untypical Madonna with the Long Neck (1534), and he remains the best known artist of the first generation whose whole careers fall into the Mannerist period.
Francesco de' Rossi was an Italian Mannerist painter who lived and worked mainly in Florence, but also produced several works in Rome. He is known by many names, prominently the adopted name Francesco Salviati or as Il Salviati, but also Francesco Rossi and Cecchino del Salviati.
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a separate portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits, already more common among wealthy Netherlanders than south of the Alps. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, did it become truly popular.
Andrea Meldolla, also known as Andrea Schiavone or Andrea Lo Schiavone was an Italian Renaissance painter and etcher, born in present-day Croatia, active mainly in the city of Venice. His style combined Mannerist elements, a relative rarity in Venice, with much influence from the mainstream of Venetian painting, especially Titian.
The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, also known as The Lives, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art", "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art", and "the first important book on art history". The title is often abridged to just the Vite or the Lives.
Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Cupid Making His Bow is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Portrait of Lorenzo Cybo (1524) is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. It is housed in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Bardi Altarpiece, is an Italian Mannerist painting by the Italian painter Parmigianino, dating from c. 1521 and housed in the church of Santa Maria at Bardi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
The Circumcision of Jesus, a painting by the Italian Mannerist artist Parmigianino of the common subject of the circumcision of Jesus, was made around 1523 and is now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, United States.
Portrait of Pier Maria Rossi di San Secondo is a painting by the Italian Mannerist artist Parmigianino, executed around 1535–1539 and housed in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. The subject was Count of San Secondo, and the painting forms a pair with a group portrait of his Countess and their children, Portrait of Camilla Gonzaga and Her Three Sons, although the latter is not unanimously attributed to Parmigianino.
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is a 1975 poetry collection by the American writer John Ashbery. The title, shared with its final poem, comes from the painting of the same name by the Late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. The book won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, the only book to have received all three awards.
Portrait of a Young Man is an oil on panel painting by Parmigianino, executed c. 1530, now in the Uffizi in Florence, whose collection it entered on 27 October 1682. Three copies survive in the Museo di Capodimonte, Rome's Accademia di San Luca and the Galleria nazionale di Parma.
Portrait of a Man in a Red Beret or Self-Portrait in a Red Beret is a oil on paper painting attributed to Parmigianino or Michelangelo Anselmi, executed c. 1540, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Parma.
The convex mirror is a c 1916 oil with pencil on wood panel painting by Australian artist George Washington Lambert.
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