Painted in Tothill Fields Prison, near London, where the artist was confined, on the charge of High Treason, during the winter of 1781. Correggio was born in 1494, at Correggio, a small town in the Duchy of Modena. His real name was Antonio Allegri, de Correggio, or of Correggio, according to the Italian and French custom. He died in 1534, at the age of 40, and was, therefore, cotemporary [sic] with Raphael, M. Angelo, Titian, &c. His master in the art was an unimportant artist in Modena, from whom he learned little, but formed a style of his own; in which were united truth and purity of color, grace, and elegance of design, sweetness of expression, and a superior knowledge of light and shadow. He wanted only correctness of drawing, to have rendered him superior even to Raphael. The little Madonna and infant Savior in the gallery at New-Haven was copied from a copy made by Mr. West, from the original, which is preserved at Parma, and is allowed by all connoisseurs, to be one of the three finest paintings in existence; the other two pictures are the transfiguration [sic], by Raphael, and the communion [sic] of St. Jerome, by Domenichino, which of these three is best, is undecided. [P. 18.]
Catalogue of Paintings of Colonel Trumbull, including eight subjects of the American Revolution, with near two hundred and fifty Portraits of persons distinguished in that important period painted by him from the Life, now exhibiting in the Gallery of Yale College, New-Haven. New-Haven: Printed by J. Peck, 1835.
