''Saint Barbara'' is an oil on panel painting by Parmigianino, created ''c.'' 1523, now in the

Prado Museum The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. Copies of it are in the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer ...

(inv. 354), Pomona College and

Chatsworth House Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family sin ...

(inv. 508). The painting arrived in Spain in 1686, when it was recorded in the real Alcázar di Madrid, and from

1746 Events January–March * January 8 – The Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart occupies Stirling, Scotland. * January 17 – Battle of Falkirk Muir: British Government forces are defeated by Jacobite forces. * February 1 ...

in the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso. It is universally attributed to Parmigianino and specifically his youth by comparison with the Virgin Mary in his Bardi Altarpiece and with his '' Saint Apollonia and Saint Lucy''. Popham identifies a drawing at the Bonnat Museum in

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...

as a possible preparatory study for the work.

History

It is probably the ''Saint Barbara'' acquired in 1624 with other works by princess Giulia d'Este for cardinal

Alessandro d'Este Alessandro d'Este (1568–1624) was a Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' E ...

and recorded in 1662 in the Muselli collection in

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

, the latter work being reported as "to my taste neof the most beautiful paintings by Parmigianino ..by an arm's length".Mario Di Giampaolo ed Elisabetta Fadda, ''Parmigianino'', Keybook, Santarcangelo di Romagna 2002.

References

{{16C-painting-stub Paintings by Parmigianino

Parmigiano Parmesan ( it, Parmigiano Reggiano; ) is an Italian hard, granular cheese produced from cows’ milk and aged at least 12 months. It is named after two of the areas which produce it, the provinces of Parma and Reggio Emilia (''Parmigiano'' i ...

Paintings of the Museo del Prado by Italian artists 1523 paintings Este collection