1534
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
A garzone grinding pigments is a 1534 by Parmigianino, a Renaissance work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
The drawing shows a young man grinding pigments with a mortar and pestle. This scene is interesting because it gives us a glimpse into the everyday life of an artist's workshop. The assistant is doing a crucial task that helps the artist create his paintings. To learn more about the methods used to create detailed drawings like this, look up the technique: cross-hatching.
The drawing depicts a workshop assistant, known as a garzone, grinding mineral pigments to be mixed with oil for paint preparation, reflecting a routine task in the artist’s studio. It illustrates the initial stage of artistic training within workshop practices of the period. The work is attributed to Parmigianino’s later phase, with the tightly curled hair of the figure compared to a similar rendering in a youthful head study at Chatsworth.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 1503 – 24 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (UK: , US: , Italian: ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist…
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