The Casalmaggiore Altarpiece is a 1540 oil on panel painting by Parmigianino, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, which acquired it from the Este collection in 1746.[1]
It is named after Casalmaggiore, whither the artist had fled from Parma after imprisonment for non-compliance by the priors of Santa Maria della Steccata and where he spent five months before dying of a fever.[2] It was commissioned for the church of Santo Stefano (now the Duomo) in the town and in 1846 Mortara recorded a tradition that the commissioner was Matteo Cavalli and that Cavalli is shown resting his head on Saint Stephen's leg in the bottom right-hand corner of the work. A preparatory study survives in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle,[3] along with a drawing of the Madonna and Child for the work in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe in Florence.[4]
The work remained in Santo Stefano for at least a century before the local community allowed it to be moved to the Galleria Estense in Modena, hoping this would win the Este family over to making the church a collegiate one - Correggio's Casalmaggiore Madonna was also given up on similar grounds. This transaction occurred during Francesco I d'Este's temporary occupation of the town in 1647 during his war with Spain, though its citizens had first been forewarned of the work's interest to collectors by a 1602 visit from Palmerio Celestani, an intermediary for Ferdinando Gonzaga - a letter dated 14 February 1602 states Celestani met the church's priest, who was willing to sell the work, though for an unknown reason the sale was not completed.[5]