Correggio, 'The Madonna of the Basket', about 1524

The Madonna of the Basket

Correggio

Not on display

About the work

Overview

The Virgin Mary sits under a tree in a simple gown of faded rose, her work basket with its iron shears and ball of grey wool at her side. She is trying a grey jacket she has just made on the Christ Child, which may be the seamless coat that legend claims grew with him and for which the soldiers cast lots at the foot of the cross (John 19: 23–4).The wriggly child stretches his arms out in a manner that may be meant to foreshadow the Crucifixion, his right hand in a blessing gesture. The atmosphere is suffused with tenderness.

Joseph is in the background, at work in his trade as a carpenter. The holy family’s simple home has been built alongside grandiose ruins – a symbol of the new faith rising out of the wreckage of pagan antiquity. The picture is a soft harmony of grey-pinks and grey-blues with the gentle, smoky quality for which Correggio is famous.

In-depth

This is one of the most perfectly preserved paintings in the National Gallery. It is also one of the only small paintings by Correggio whose original patron is known. In his Lives of the Artists, Vasari records a painting by Correggio in which ‘Our Lady puts a shirt on the Christ Child’ in the collection of Cavaliere Francesco Baiardo. Baiardo was Correggio’s friend and protector, and later became Parmigianino’s greatest patron.

The Virgin Mary sits under a tree, her work basket with its iron shears and ball of grey wool at her side, trying a grey jacket she has just made on the Christ Child. It may be the seamless coat that legend claims grew with him and for which the soldiers cast lots at the foot of the Cross (John 19:23–4). The wriggly child stretches his arms out in a manner that may be meant to foreshadow the Crucifixion. He reaches towards the sun-dappled leaves, his right hand in a gesture that recalls the act of blessing. Mary is not wearing her traditional regal robes of ultramarine blue but a simple gown of faded rose.

The picture is a soft harmony of grey-pinks and grey-blues. Correggio learned his famous softness from the gradual smoky fade from shadow to light that he saw in Leonardo’s Milanese paintings. His approach to colour and the blur and shimmer of his brush also reveal the influence of Venetian painters such as Titian. The atmosphere is one of innocence, and maternal and filial love, suffused with tenderness. In its intensity of emotion, the Madonna of the Basket is very close to Correggio’s Lamentation of 1524 (Galleria Nazionale, Parma), suggesting a similar date. The diagonal composition (falling from top left down to bottom right), the twisting pose of the Virgin and the extreme foreshortening of Christ’s leg are made to seem effortless, demonstrating Correggio’s mastery of his art.

Joseph can be seen in the background, pale as if in a haze of sawdust in the sunshine, at work with a plane in his trade as a carpenter. The family’s simple home has been built alongside grandiose ruins – a symbol of the new faith rising out of the wreckage of pagan antiquity. The ruins and image of Joseph working recall Dürer’s print of the Holy Family in Egypt (British Museum, London), revealing Correggio’s interest in German art.

Correggio has depicted the modest domestic life of the holy family to stress the humility of Christ and the Virgin and their all too human sufferings. These down-to-earth, familiar details and the deep sentiment of the scene are intended to make the holy family seem approachable and emotionally open to us. This approach prefigures developments in seventeenth-century religious art.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Madonna of the Basket
Artist: Correggio
Artist dates: active 1494; died 1534
Date made: about 1524
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 33.7 × 25.1 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought from C. J. Nieuwenhuys collection, 1825
Inventory number: NG23
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Chrétien-Jean Nieuwenhuys
Frame: 16th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

Baiardi, Parma. 1666 inventory of the Alcázar, Madrid and then in subsequent royal inventories up to that of 1789. Next recorded in 1813 among pictures which Wallis was bringing from Spain to Buchanan in England. In Buchanan’s list of that year stated to have come from ‘The first collection at Madrid’. Exactly how or in what circumstances it left the Spanish royal collection is not known, and contrary to what is generally stated it is unlikely that it was ever in Godoy’s possession. Nevertheless, the fact that Wallis was able to acquire it must be attributed to the upheavals consequent on the Peninsular War. Buchanan and Wallis having failed to find a buyer in England, the picture was taken back to the continent and by 1820 was in the possession of M. Lapeyrière at Paris. No. 16 in the sale of the latter’s possessions, Paris, 19th April, 1825, where bought by the elder Nieuwenhuys, from whose son purchased, June, 1825.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1666

Inventory, Pardo Palace, Alcázar 1666
1759

G. Vasari, Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti, scritte da Giorgio Vasari … cor. da molti errori e illustrate con note, ed. G.G. Bottari, 3 vols, Rome 1759
1787

A.R. Mengs, Opere di Antonio Raffaello Mengs, Rome 1787
1793

A. Conca, Descrizione odeporica della Spagna, in cui spezialmente si dà notizia delle cose spettanti alle belle arti, Parma 1793
1817

L. Pungileoni, Memorie istoriche di Antonio Allegri detto il Correggio, 3 vols, Parma 1817
1824

W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England Since the French Revolution, London 1824
1825

Lacoste, Catalogue de tableaux précieux, et autres objets de curiosité: Formant le cabinet de M. Lapeyrière, Paris, 19 April 1825 - 29 April 1825
1832

W.Y. Ottley, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, London 1832
1833

J.D. Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien, Frankfurt am Main 1833
1834

C.-J. Nieuwenhuys, A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters, London 1834
1836

A. von Reumont, 'Review: C. J. Nieuwenhuys, Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters, London, 1834', Tübinger Kunstblatt, 1836
1845

T. Penrice, Letters Addressed to the Late Thomas Penrice, Esq., while Engaged in Forming His Collection of Pictures, 1808-1814, ed. J. Penrice, Yarmouth 1845
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1871

J. Meyer, Correggio, Leipzig 1871
1878

G. Vasari, Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878
1896

C. Ricci, Antonio Allegri da Correggio, London 1896
1907

G. Gronau, Correggio, des Meisters Gemälde in 196 Abbildungen, Stuttgart 1907
1930

C. Ricci, Correggio, London 1930
1934

J. Martínez, Discursos practicables del nobilisimo arte de la pintura, Madrid 1934
1953

P. Bianconi, Tutta la pittura del Correggio, Milan 1953
1956

Y. Bottineau, 'L'alcázar de Madrid et l'inventaire de 1686', Bulletin hispanique, 1956
1957

A.E. Popham, Correggio's Drawings, Oxford 1957
1961

S. Bottari, Correggio, Milan 1961
1962

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools (excluding the Venetian), London 1962
1970

A.C. Quintavalle, L'opera completa del Correggio, Milan 1970
1971

A.E. Popham, Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven 1971
1975

C. Gould, Delaroche and Gautier: Gautier's Views on the 'Execution of Lady Jane Grey' and on other Compositions by Delaroche, London 1975
1976

C. Gould, The Paintings of Correggio, London 1976
1982

G. Ercoli, Arte e fortuna del Correggio, Modena 1982
1984

S. Mascalchi, 'Giovan Carlo de' Medici: An Outstanding But Neglected Collector in Seventeenth Century Florence', Apollo, CXX/272, 1984, pp. 268-72
1985

J. Hoffman, 'Lelio Orsi si è dato ai tedeschi', Acta historiae artium, XXXI, 1985, pp. 31-41
1987

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
1990

S. Béguin, 'Une source probable pour la "Madone au long Cou', in M.B. Castellotti (ed.), Scritti in onore di Giuliano Briganti, Milan 1990
1991

F. Herrmann, 'Peel and Solly: Two Nineteenth-Century Art Collectors and Their Sources of Supply', Journal of the History of Collections, III/1, 1991, pp. 89-96
1992

M. Warner, 'The Pre-Raphaelites and the National Gallery', in M. Warner et al., The Pre-Raphaelites in Context, San Marino 1992, pp. 1-12
1993

M. Di Giampaolo and A. Muzzi, Correggio: Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence 1993
1996

L. Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion, 2nd edn, Chicago 1996
1997

D. Ekserdjian, Correggio, London 1997
1999

R.G. Kecks, '"Est locus Aegypti": Ein Holzschnitt Dürers als Anregung für italienische und niederländische Tafelbilder', Pantheon, LVII, 1999, pp. 61-77
1999

I. Barkoczi, Von Raffael bis Tiepolo: Italienische Kunst aus der Sammlung des Furstenhauses Esterhazy (exh. cat. Schirn Kunsthalle, 2 October 1999 - 2 January 2000), Frankfurt 1999
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2001

O. Pujmanová, 'Correggian Paintings in Prague', Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague, II, 2001, pp. 38-48
2003

L. Fornari Schianchi, Parmigianino e il manierismo europeo, Parma 2003
2008

L.F. Schianchi (ed.), Correggio (exh. cat. Galleria Nazionale, Camera di San Paolo, Cattedrale, Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, 20 September 2008 - 25 January 2009), Milan 2008

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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You've viewed 6 of 11 works

Correggio, 'The Madonna of the Basket', about 1524

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Correggio