Retrato de una joven

Parmigianino painted this around 1530, a few years after fleeing Rome. He had been working there in 1527 when imperial troops sacked the city, and like many artists he escaped the chaos, making his way back toward his native Parma. The sitter is a richly dressed young woman, perhaps a member of the Bolognese Gozzadini family, though her identity is not secure. What holds the eye is the Mannerist polish he carried home from Rome, the elegant tapering neck and the cool, unhurried gaze. That elongation of the neck runs through nearly all his figures and would reach its extreme a decade later in his celebrated long-necked Madonna.