By Anne Leader
Perino del Vaga died on 20 October 1547 in Rome at the age of 46. Born in Florence to the Buonaccorsi family and baptized Pietro, Perino trained in Florence with a friend of the painter Raphael. According to Giorgio Vasari, Perino’s education also included making copies of Michelangelo’s famous cartoon for his never-completed fresco showing the Battle of Cascina. Around the age of 15, Perino moved to Rome with a painter called Vaga and adopted his name. Deeply influenced by Raphael and Michelangelo, Perino came under the sway of the Mannerist style. His decorative and graceful compositions had great influence over the successive generation of artists in Rome and Genoa.
Reference: Richard Harprath. “Perino del Vaga.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
Further reading: In Michelangelo’s Mirror: Perino del Vaga, Daniele da Volterra, Pellegrino Tibaldi by Morten Steen Hansen (2013).
The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, ca. 1524-6. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Acquisitions Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Fisch, Denise and Andrew Saul, and Friends of European Paintings Gifts, Gwynne Andrews Fund, Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill, Jon and Barbara Landau, Charles and Jesse Price, Hester Diamond, and Fern and George Wachter Gifts, 2011.
Studies of Figures and Architecture (recto); Figure Studies (verso), ca. 1545. Pen and brown ink, brown wash, and black chalk, with stylus underdrawing (recto); pen and brown ink and brown wash (verso). Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 88.GG.132.
Sala Paolina, 1545-7, Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome