The Lovers

Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Following the example of Raphael, Parmigianino had a great interest in using prints to disseminated knowledge of his designs. In Rome, he produced drawings for Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio (Italian, ca. 1500/1505–1565) to translate into engravings, while in Bologna he may have drawn directly on the woodblocks carved by Antonio da Trento (Italian, active 1520s–30s) to produce chiaroscuro woodcuts. Parmigianino's involvement in printmaking went even further when, sometime in the mid-1520s, he took up the etching needle himself to experiment with this new technique. He was the first Italian to exploit the possibilities of etching, in which lines are freely scratched through a waxy ground, to directly translate the draftsman's manner. He produced no more than fifteen etchings, yet his example was to inspire the future development of a distinctly Italian printmaking tradition. This is one of Parmigianino's most beautiful prints, that demonstrates his sensitivity to landscape, as well as his characteristically graceful and elongated figure types.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art