Antea (Parmigianino)

Antea (also known as Portrait of a Young Woman) is a painting by the Italian Mannerist artist Parmigianino.

In the late 17th century, the painting was moved to the Ducal Gallery in the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma.

[citation needed] During World War II it was moved to Montecassino, where it was stolen by the occupying German forces and brought to Berlin, and then to the Austrian salt mines of Altaussee, from where it returned to Italy in 1945.

Studies of the woman's garments, a mix of luxury and popular elements, have led to the hypothesis that she could be either the artist's daughter, a lover, or a servant of Parmigianino, if not Pellegrina Rossi di San Secondo or another unknown noblewoman of Parma.

[2] Art historian Elizabeth Cropper has written about the painting in the context of the extensive Italian Renaissance discourse on the specific traits and qualities of ideal female beauty.