The Contest of Apollo and Marsyas

The drawing is a finished modello by Parmigianino for an unsigned chiaroscuro woodcut traditionally attributed to Ugo da Carpi.¹ At left, Apollo plays a viola instead of the lyre with which he is typically associated. Apollo’s pose is loosely dependent on the famous ancient sculpture of the Apollo Belvedere, which was installed in 1503 in the Belvedere courtyard of the Vatican Palace.² The seated figure, at right, likely represents the satyr Marsyas. Ovid, Apollodorus, and Hyginus tell the story of his hubris in challenging Apollo to a musical contest, and how on losing, Marsyas was flayed alive. Marsyas is usually represented in completely human form except for his pointed ears, and sometimes a short tail.

The sheet is one of a series of drawings by Parmigianino illustrating the legend of Apollo and Marsyas as narrated by Hyginus, a Roman scholar and friend of Ovid’s.³ This surviving group includes another five finished studies in oval frames, now in the Louvre, which – like the Morgan sheet – were once in the collection of Everhard Jabach.⁴ Before the connection with the other drawings was recognized, the satyr in the Morgan sheet was occasionally identified as the faun Pan, who lost to Apollo in a similar context while playing the syrinx or reed pipes.

Parmigianino made several designs for chiaroscuro woodcuts during his sojourn in Bologna after having fled Rome during the sack of the city in 1527. An impression of the second state of Ugo da Carpi’s woodcut is kept with the drawing at the Morgan. There is a large finished copy of the present drawing by Andrea Schiavone, which is now also in the Morgan’s collection.⁵

Footnotes:

1. The Illustrated Bartsch, 12: 123-24, no. 24.
2. Bober and Rubinstein 1986, 71-72, no. 28.
3. Gnann 2007, 1: 447-49, nos. 606-16
4. Louvre, Paris, inv. 6412, 6412bis, 6413, 6415, 6433.
5. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. 1979.59.