The Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate

This drawing was attributed to Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli in 1965 by Konrad Oberhuber (note on verso of mount), who published it as a characteristic early work from the 1530s, when Bedoli's graphic style strongly reflected that of his teacher, Parmigianino. Oberhu­ber's identification of the scene as the meeting of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate has been generally accepted, although Walter Vitzthum suggested that the drawing represented Ulysses' reunion with Penelope. Diane De Grazia proposed a later date, demonstrating that the drawing reveals the influence of Giulio Romano on Bedoli after the latter's first documented stay in Man­tua of 1552. In its broad sculptural forms and tight contours, the sheet closely resembles several securely dated works by Bedoli from this later period, including a pen and wash preparatory study in the Uffizi for the Adoration of the Shepherds (13179 F.) of c. 1553 in Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma. A. E. Popham noted that the Chicago drawing compares closely with one at Christ Church, Oxford (0419), which Philip Pouncey had attributed to Bedoli and which features a similar couple, tentatively identified as Augustus and the Sibyl, standing beneath a classical arch.