Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Parmigianino · Renaissance & Mannerism
- Artist
- Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola) (1503–1540)
- Date
- c. 1524
- Dimensions
- 24.4 cm (diameter)
- Medium
- Oil on convex wooden panel
- Location
- Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
This small, round self-portrait shows the twenty-one-year-old Parmigianino as he appeared in a convex barber's mirror, his face calm and youthful at the centre, his hand hugely enlarged in the foreground.
A closer look
To reproduce the distorting effect exactly, the artist had a carpenter make a wooden ball, cut in half, and painted on its curved surface. The room behind him bends around the edges: a window, a ceiling, the walls curving like the inside of a bubble. His soft, almost angelic face looks out at us, while his hand, closest to the mirror, swells to an unnatural size. Parmigianino took the painting to Rome to show off his skill to Pope Clement VII; it was a bold advertisement for his talent and inventiveness.
