Allegory of Virtues

Around 1531 Correggio was painting for one of the most demanding patrons in Italy, Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, who was assembling a small private study lined with pictures by the finest artists she could hire. Correggio had a problem. Mantegna, Perugino and Costa had already filled the walls with panels in tempera, an older, flatter technique, and his own gift was for soft oil painting. So he set the oil aside and worked this allegory in tempera too, to keep the room in tune. The armoured woman at its centre is Minerva, goddess of wisdom, crowned by Glory. When the study was broken up, the panel passed to Cardinal Richelieu, then to the French crown, which is how it reached the Louvre.