The Infant Christ and St John Embracing

Note that in the record, between the title and provenance, two identical works are referenced as forming part of Charles I's collection. It is possible that the work currently in the Royal Collection cited and illustrated here, which bears a CR brand, actually corresponds with the work referred to in the record as a copy from the Mantua collection given away by Charles I to Sir James Palmer, and not with that of the principal record. Yet John Shearman (Early Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty..., 1983, p.40) noted that the Royal Collection picture also has a seventeenth-century note on the back reading "boug[ht]... from [?] Italy". If the work was part of the Mantua sale, the note would specify Mantua rather than Italy. Therefore, it is probable that the version in the Royal Collection today is identical with that referred to in the principal van der Doort record and not the one given away.

Another work of similar appearance and size, also on panel but without a CR brand, was once in the Los Angeles County Museum and sold at Sotheby's New York 2010, lot 15, 36.8 x 52.1. This has been associated with a 1632 inventory of the collector Roberto Canonici in Ferrara. It is possible that the ex-Los Angeles work is identical with the one referred to by van der Doort as the copy from Mantua given away to Sir James Palmer. Scholars have yet to decide which is the prime version (John Shearman thought they both might have been autograph)

The Judith by Raphael referred to in the provenance is probably the Judith and Holofernes by Andrea Mantegna in the National Gallery of Art Washington (no. 1942.9.42)

Sale Inventory c.1649-51

per Parmigianino

Two Naked Boys

Walpole Society reference (1972): 
WS 262, №110
Appraisal: 
50-0-0
Sold to: 
R [reserved]; reserved: with His Highness
Appears in Charles II c1666: 
Whitehall, no 338
Identification certainty: 
Identified