DI UN’OPERA SUPPOSTA PERDUTA DEL CORREGGIO: IL ‘GIOVANE CHE SFUGGE ALLA CATTURA DI CRISTO’

Correggio’s painting of a ‘Young Man Fleeing from the Capture of Christ in the Garden of Olives,’ (Gospel of St Mark ,XIV, 51-52) was hitherto known from copies. The painting of the subject here published, is of such high quality that it can only be Correggio’s lost original . The pentiments in the centurion’s left arm and hand and in the young man’s allow the painting to be identified with one of the two versions of the subject that at some point belonged in Rome in the 18th century. The style corresponds closely with that of the paintings by Correggio formerly in S. Giovanni Evangelista, Parma, datable 1523. It is here suggested that Correggio was commissioned to paint the ‘Young Man Fleeing from the Capture of Christ in the Garden of Olives’ by the Parmese advocate, Bartolomeo Prati.