Head of an Angel

This is a fresco fragment from Correggio’s Coronation of the Virgin, which he painted in the apse of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Parma. It was part of a scene painted into the interior plaster on the church ceiling, and this fragment from the top layer of the plaster was removed and is now preserved in the National Gallery.The fresco depicted Christ crowning the Virgin Mary in heaven, surrounded by the evangelists and doctors of the church, and little angels known in Italian as putti. Christ and the Virgin were seated beneath a flowering garden pergola, which revealed that the scene was set in paradise.The head belonged to the angel to the left of the Virgin, who held Saint Benedict’s crosier. You can just make out the angel’s fingers in the bottom right-hand corner of the fresco fragment. The line running up the side of his face is the staff of the crosier. Correggio’s black chalk drawing for this angel’s head is in Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford.Correggio received final payment for the work in January 1524. The apse of the church was destroyed in the 1580s when the choir was enlarged, but the central figures of Correggio’s fresco showing the coronation of the Virgin were saved and are in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma. A replica of Correggio’s fresco was painted in 1587 by Cesare Aretusi in the new apse of S. Giovanni Evangelista.