Correggio's pictures are not so numerous as those of some painters; ' but they are sufficiently spread over Europe for his style and fame to be universally recognised. The cupola of the c tthedral at Parma is painted with an 'Assumption of the Virgin' in frosco, of which the numerous beauties, the masterly foreshortening, the mete, the colour, and the design, so excited Titian'. admiration, that he is reported to have said, " If I were not Titian, I would be Correggio." In the gallery at Dresden are the ' Notte,' or rather' Dawn '—a grand pic ture on the subject of the Nativity, and • mesterpiece of chiaroscuro —and a little cabinet picture, the ' Penitent Magdalen; in which the saint is represented lying on the ground reading. A blue mantle eeeelepes the form ; the head, shoulder., bosom, and feet are bare; a shady nook tushriues the saint. Her brow rest. upon one hand, and • tender melancholy trembles on her lips. The soft features, the delicate bosom, the gentle arms, aro of the rarest beauty. It is perhaps the most perfect woman ever painted. In our own National Gallery are three or four of his best pictures :—' Mercury instructing Cupid In the presence of Venue' (formerly in the possession of Charles I., who purchased it of the Duke of Mautua, and universally allowed to be one of the artist's masterpieces), and au 'Ecce Homo' (in which the Madonna is painfully true to suffering nature, but redeemed by hie usual beauty of form and expression); these two pictures were purchased by the British government in 1834 of the Marquis of Londonderry for 10,0001. There is also • Holy Family,
known as • La Vie,- au Punier; and formerly in the Royal Gallery at Madrid—small In size, but of the most exquisite beauty. Another is 'Christ's Agony in the Garden,' a duplicate of the one in the pos session of the Duke of Wellington. Two of the moat celebrated of Correegio's pictures were destroyed, it is Laid, by order of the Regent Duke of Orleans, for the too great freedom of the design—the 'Danab' sod the ' 10*— a strange story for a man of his character. The former was pieced together again by Coypel; of the latter a duplicate still exists.
Correggio had many good pupils, among whom pay be reckoned his son, who painted a fresco in the cathedral at Parma, which has been much commended. He abandoned painting however before be died. l'armigiauo may be reckoned among tho followers and imitatera of Correggio, though not among his pupils.
(Tirabosehl ; Vuari ; Menge ; Ratti ; Lanai, &c.)