Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

The virtuoso draftman Parmigianino and pioneering printmaker Antonio da Trento collaborated in the production of chiaroscuro woodcuts, an early form of color printing in the 1520s. The artists worked together in Bologna after Parmigianino had fled there following the Sack of Rome in 1527. The Mannerist flourish admired in Parmigianino's designs is on display in the elongated forms, flattened space, and complex arrangement of figures and limbs that are woven into a harmonious, tender domestic scene. Antonio expertly translates the composition into a subtle three-color image, printed from two blocks: a pale green tone block, a gray inked line block, and delicate white lines from the reserve of the paper employed to model forms. Italy, Europe