Madonna della Scodella

Madonna della Scodella is an oil painting on panel by Antonio da Correggio (216,7 x 137,3 cm), dated from 1528 to about 1530 and preserved at the Galleria nazionale di Parma.

[2] The result was completed in 1530, as is revealed in the inscription on the original frame: DIVO IOSEPPO DEIPARAE VIRGINIS CUSTODI / FIDISS COELITUSQ DESTINATO HVIVSCE / ARAE COMUNI AERE ERECTORES DEVOTI / ALACRESQ EREXERE / DIE II IVNII[3]Giorgio Vasari cited the work as "panel of divine painting" in the second edition of his Lives while speaking of Girolamo da Carpi, who he believed had studied in San Sepolcro.

[5] Madonna della Scodella has had a wide influence: it was studied by, among others, Lelio Orsi, Federico Barocci,[6] Lanfranco Frigeri [it], Domenichino, as well as Carlo Maratta and Pompeo Batoni.

The painting depicts an episode in the infancy of Jesus narrated in the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew: while returning to Palestine after the Flight into Egypt and during a break in the shade of a date palm, the Sacred Family were fed, thanks to the tree, which, folding extraordinarily, offered its fruits to the travelers.

The image is constructed on a diagonal line, that opens on the left with the bowl of silver and follows the intertwining of hands by the Virgin, Baby Jesus, and Joseph.