The Madonna and Child with White Rabbit (La zingarella)
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1700 - 1934
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
630 x 520 mm
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436110
Caption
The traditional title is owed to the Madonna being attired as a gypsy girl (zingarella), her hair is wrapped in a scarf about her head, she wears a yellowish-white shirt, blue skirts and sandals. She is depicted sitting on the ground with flowers about her, and the infant Christ in her lap, recalling the traditional iconography of the Madonna of Humility but also sjows a moment of repose o the Flight into Egypt without Joseph. Above are ghostly figures of angels and to the left appears the head of a white rabbit. In antiquity it was thought that the rabbit could reproduce without sexual intercourse. So here the rabbit is an allusion to the Madonna’s virginity and the conception of Christ without sin, its whiteness an assertion of purity. This is a copy of La Zingarella by Correggio, of about 1515/17, in the Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples before its overzealous restoration in 1934.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Madonna and Child with White Rabbit (La zingarella), after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534). Called the 'Gypsy Madonna' this copy shows the Madonna in repose on the Flight into Egypt, without the presence of Joseph, seated on the ground with the Child in her lap. She wears a yellowish-white robe with a blue cloak and a headdress. A rabbit's head is just appearing from the left of the picture and a cherub appears at the top. This is a copy after the original in the Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, before its restoration in 1934 when the rabbit and a flying angel were removed. Other versions are at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, Glasgow Museums (126), Lacock Abbey, NT 996492 and Stourhead, NT 732360.
Makers and roles
after Correggio (Correggio c.1489 – Correggio 1534), artist
References
Gould 1976 Cecil Gould, The Paintings of Correggio, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1976, p. 230 Ekserdjian 1997 David Ekserdjian, Correggio, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1997, p. 61 Humfrey 2012 Peter Humfrey, The Italian Paintings, Glasgow Museums, 2012, no. 36