The Madonna of the Long Neck , also known as Madonna and Child with Angels and St. Jerome, is an Italian

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

 Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 oil painting by the Italian painter Parmigianino

Parmigianino

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola , also known as Francesco Mazzola or more commonly as Parmigianino or sometimes "Parmigiano", was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma...

, dating from c. 1535-1540 and depicting Madonna and Child with angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

s. The painting was begun in 1534 for the church of the Servites

Servite Order

The Servite Order is one of the five original Catholic mendicant orders. Its objects are the sanctification of its members, preaching the Gospel, and the propagation of devotion to the Mother of God, with special reference to her sorrows. The members of the Order use O.S.M. as their post-nominal...

 in Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, but remained incomplete on Parmigianino's death in 1540. Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1790 to 1801 and, after a period of disenfranchisement, again from 1814 to 1824. He was also the Prince-elector and Grand Duke of Salzburg and Grand Duke of Würzburg .-Biography:Ferdinand was born in Florence, Tuscany, into the...

 purchased it in 1798 and it has been on display at the Uffizi

Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...

 since 1948.

Description

The painting depicts the Virgin Mary  seated on a high pedestal and swathed in luxurious robes, holding a rather large baby Jesus on her lap. On her left are visible six angels crowding around the Madonna and adoring the Christ. The unfinished face of the angel on the bottom left (from the viewer's perspective) can be seen more clearly in recent reproductions (top), following a restoration of the painting. Additionally, the angel in the middle of the bottom row now looks at the vase held by the angel on his right, in which can be seen the faint image of a cross. Before the restoration (as can be seen in the older reproduction, bottom), this angel looked down at the Christ child. The changes made during the restoration likely reflect the original painting, which must have been altered at some time in its history. On the Madonna's right (from the viewer's perspective) is an enigmatic scene, with a row of marble columns and the emaciated figure of St. Jerome. A depiction of St. Jerome was required by the commissioner because of the saint's connection with the adoration of the Virgin Mary. The painting is popularly called "Madonna of the Long Neck" because "the painter, in his eagerness to make the Holy Virgin look graceful and elegant, has given her a neck like that of a swan." On the unusual arrangement of figures, Austrian-British art historian E. H. Gombrich writes:
Parmigianino has distorted nature for his own artistic purposes, creating a typical Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 figura serpentinata

Figura serpentinata

Figura Serpentinata is a style in painting and sculpture that is typical of Mannerism. It is similar, but not identical, to contrapposto, and features figures often in a spiral pose...

. Jesus is also extremely large for a baby and he lies precariously on Mary's lap as if about to fall at any moment. The Madonna herself is of hardly human proportions—she is almost twice the size of the angels to her right and her right foot rests on cushions that appear to be only a few inches away from the picture plane

Picture plane

A picture plane is the imaginary flat surface which is usually located between the station point and the object being viewed and is ordinarily a vertical plane perpendicular to the horizontal projection of the line of sight to the object's order of interest....

, but the foot itself seems to project beyond it, and is thus on "our" side of the canvas, breaking the conventions of a framed picture. Her slender hands and long fingers have also led the Italian medical scientist Vito Franco of the University of Palermo

University of Palermo

The University of Palermo is a university located in Palermo, Italy, and founded in 1806. It is organized in 12 Faculties.-History:The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although its earliest roots date back to 1498 when medicine and law were taught there...

 to diagnose that Parmigianino's model had the genetic disorder Marfan syndrome

Marfan syndrome

Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. People with Marfan's tend to be unusually tall, with long limbs and long, thin fingers....

affecting her connective tissue.