''Nativity with Angels'' is a c.1525 oil on panel painting by

Parmigianino Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bo ...

, now in the

Galleria Doria-Pamphili The Doria Pamphilj Gallery is a large art collection housed in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, Italy, between Via del Corso and Via della Gatta. The principal entrance is on the Via del Corso (until recently, the entrance to the gallery was fr ...

in Rome. Its shape and dimensions show it to form a diptych with the

Doria Madonna The ''Doria Madonna'' is a c.1525 oil on panel painting by Parmigianino, now in the Galleria Doria-Pamphili in Rome. Its shape and dimensions show it to form a diptych with the '' Nativity with Angels'' in the same gallery. A smaller autograph ve ...

in the same gallery. It appears in Tonci's 1794 description of the Galleria Doria and may be the work mentioned in Vasari's ''

Lives of the Artists ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'' ( it, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori), often simply known as ''The Lives'' ( it, Le Vite), is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-ce ...

'' as "Madonna and Child, some angels and a Saint Joseph" produced in Rome for Luigi Gaddi. These mentions and stylistic similarities to other early works such as '' Female Saint with Two Angels'' (

Städel Museum The Städel, officially the ''Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie'', is an art museum in Frankfurt, with one of the most important collections in Germany. The Städel Museum owns 3,100 paintings, 660 sculptures, more than 4,600 ...

) and the Fontanellato frescoes place it in his first years in Rome. The

sfumato Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...

technique and complex orchestration of looks and gestures is reminiscent of

Coreggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sens ...

, a strong influence on Parmigianino early in his career. Mario Di Giampaolo ed Elisabetta Fadda, Parmigianino, Keybook, Santarcangelo di Romagna 2002.

References

{{16C-painting-stub Paintings by Parmigianino 1525 paintings Collections of the Doria Pamphilj Gallery