Our renovated historic buildings reopen April 2025. Explore online!
Exhibitions presented at The Frick Collection during 2004.
From December 2004 through January 2005, in collaboration with the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture, The Frick Collection displayed La Fornarina by Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) from the National Gallery of Art at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. Painted around 1518 and signed by the artist, this celebrated work has never before been exhibited in the United States.
When is a work of art complete? And when do further additions detract from the desired result? These questions lie at the heart of aesthetic theory and have preoccupied artists, critics, and collectors for centuries. The problem of "finish" is particularly relevant in the graphic arts, in which images are developed in stages and often distributed at various points in their making.
Born in Parma in 1503 and known as Parmigianino after his native city, Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola lived only thirty-seven years, yet in that brief time the quantity, variety, and sheer beauty of his drawings came to exemplify the art of draftsmanship. Less than twenty years after his death, the theorist Ludovico Dolce observed, "Parmigianino endowed his creations with a certain beauty which makes whoever looks at them fall in love with them. So delicate and accurate was his draftsmanship that every drawing of his . . . . astonishes the eyes of the beholder."
Connect with the collection digitally.
Our renovated home opens April 2025.
Members receive priority access!
Your generosity sustains our world-class public programs, research, and conservation efforts.
Museum and library news straight to your inbox.
Sign up today!