Esfolamento de Mársias

This began its life as the lid of a musical instrument. In the early 1530s the young Bronzino was working in Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast, and Vasari records that he painted a harpsichord case for the Duke of Urbino. That is almost certainly this panel, which is why its original wooden shape was an odd, lopsided hexagon fitted to the instrument's lid. The subject is a cruel one from Ovid, the satyr Marsyas being flayed alive for daring to challenge the god Apollo to a music contest and losing. For a long time the picture passed under the name of Correggio. Only in the early 20th century did a German scholar, Hermann Voss, recognise the hand as Bronzino's, matching it to Vasari's account and to preparatory drawings now in the Louvre.