Moses directing the gathering of the manna

Giulio Bonasone was an Italian painter and engraver. He was born at Bologna, where he worked from 1521 to 1574. He studied painting under Lorenzo Sabbatini and painted a Purgatory for the church of San Stefano. He is better known as an engraver, training with Marcantonio Raimondi, the first major Italian practitioner in the field, who is represented in several works in Te Papa's collection.

This engraving combines two related episodes from the Old Testament Book of Exodus. At left, Moses strikes a rock to reveal the stream of water that God had promised him would quench the Israelites’ thirst during their escape through the desert to the Promised Land. On the right, Moses tells the Israelites to gather manna, food provided by God to sustain his people during their flight. The horizontal format that resembles a frieze elegantly unites the two episodes. It's a wonderful piece of Mannerist virtuosity.

The inscription at lower right of the print attributes its design to the quintessentially Mannerist artist Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, 1503–1540), but it was actually inspired by a Roman fresco, now lost, painted by Polidoro da Caravaggio (c. 1499–1543), no relation of the later, better-known (Michelangelo Merisi da) Caravaggio. It is no surprise that Polidoro has been described as 'arguably the most gifted and certainly the least conventional of Raphael's pupils' (National Gallery, London).

See:

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/412502

Stefania Massari, Giulio Bonasone (Rome, 1983), pp. 66-67

Dr Mark Stocker        Curator, Historical International Art       February 2017