Allegory of Virtue

This is a preparatory study for one of Correggio’s last commissions, the pair of allegories in tempera on canvas that completed the decoration of Isabella d’Este’s studiolo in the Ducal Palace at Mantua and that are today in the Louvre. Close to arrangement but reversed in orientation relative to the painting, the figures rep-resent Minerva, at center, holding her helmet and a spear, and a personification of the combined Cardinal Virtues, to her right. The drawing’s first elaboration in pen-and-ink, rather than red chalk, is unusual for the artist, and, as A.E. Popham noted, his addition of an ink wash is exceptional. Not just one of the latest surviving drawings, it is also one of the most pictorially developed by this eccentric and prescient genius of North Italian painting.