This special painting from the experimental Mannerist movement can be seen again after a stunning ten-year restoration

A beautifully restored 16th-century painting is now on public display in London. The high, narrow altarpiece, called The Madonna and Child with Saints (1526-7), was created by Parmigianinoa young master who belonged to a subversive artistic movement in the early 16th century: Italian Mannerism.

The artwork had been hidden from view since conservation efforts began a decade ago. London National Gallery will exhibit the painting along with Parmigianino’s sketches as part of its 200th anniversary programming.

“It will be so exciting to see this masterpiece back on our gallery walls, and to demonstrate its visionary qualities to the public once again,” said Matthias Wivel, the gallery’s curator of 16th-century Italian paintings, in a statement.

Parmigianino, born in 1503 in the Italian city of Parma, was only 23 when he was commissioned to paint The Madonna and Child with Saints for a chapel of the Church of San Salvatore in Rome.

He was working on the piece in 1527 sack of Romewhen the armies of Charles V invaded the city. According to a report by fellow artist Giorgio VasariDuring the invasion, troops stormed Parmigianino’s studio, but they “were so amazed by what they saw that they let him pass and demanded that he make drawings for them in exchange for leaving him unharmed,” the statement said.

The 3 meter high altarpiece, also known as The Vision of St. Jerome– is ‘wild, quirky and becomes more subversive the longer you look at it’, as the Guardian‘ writes Jonathan Jones. The painting shows a halo from background to foreground Virgin Marya young one Jesus standing between her knees, St. Jerome sleeping on the floor, and St. John the Baptistscantily clad in animal skins, pointing a crooked finger at the figures behind him.

Parmigianino’s ‘unusual’ depiction of St. Jerome has been interpreted in countless ways, says exhibition curator Maria Alambritis Artnet‘s Vittoria Gasoline. Perhaps the artist was referring to the Vatican sculpture Sleeping Ariadnea copy of a work of art from the second century BC, or which emphasizes Jerome’s ‘dream state’. Alternatively, such as the Guardian writes: Parmigianino may have been referring to this document Correggio‘s sensual Venus and Cupid with a satyr (1524-1525), in which the goddess sleeps in a similar position.

“In all of art, in all the countless altarpieces out there, there cannot be many depictions of religious events as idiosyncratic and wacky as this one,” writes London’s Guardian newspaper. TimesWaldemar Januszczak.

By the 1520s it was Renaissance artists like it Michelangelo had mastered realism. Parmigianino was part of a new wave of painters who experimented with artifice. These artists became known as the Mannerists for their new “way” of painting. She played with proportions, distorted space and exaggerated human anatomy (see Parmigianino’s so-called “Madonna with the long neck”). According to the Guardian“Parmigianino is the most mannered mannerist of them all.”

The National Gallery displays a selection of chalk and ink drawings that Parmigianino made before he started painting The Madonna and Child with Saints“allowing us all to participate vicariously in his dynamic, fluid and ever-changing creative process,” as Wivel says in the statement.

Parmigianino left Rome before his painting was installed, and he spent most of his remaining life in Parma. The piece was hidden for safekeeping and was not recovered until long after Parmigianino’s death, the statement said. The National Gallery acquired the piece in 1826.

The Madonna and Child with Saints has never been a highlight of the gallery’s collection. However, according to the Guardianthe recent restoration has increased the painting’s star power: “What seemed like a mustard-yellow monstrosity has become sharper and brighter.” Like the Times writes, conservators “revealed beautiful details,” such as a “funny little cross” that John held and streams of heavenly light illuminating the vegetation – an “abundance of greenery.”

As Wivel says in the statement, “I have no doubt that this show will be an immersive experience.”

“Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome‘ can be seen at the National Gallery in London until March 9, 2025.