A Putto Seated on a Frame

Due to his expeditious production of paintings, Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli became a painter of note in the competitive artistic arena of Parma during the late 1530s and 40s. A native of Viadana (like Parmigianino, his better-known master and kinsman by marriage), Bedoli was considered Parmigianino's successor in the Parmese school, according to Giorgio Vasari, Bedoli's first biographer (1568). This rapidly executed drawing fragment is typical of the artist. He was a particularly gifted draftsman, perhaps more so than as a painter, evident here from his luminous use of wash and his bold control of line, as well as his ease in portraying the foreshortened pose of the putto. As has recently been proposed, this delightful drawing is connected to one of Bedoli's most important projects, the frescoes in the choir of Parma Cathedral of about 1538-40, which represent a dazzling composition of figures set within illusionistically painted architecture.
(Carmen C. Bambach, 2009)