What a treat to see the spectacular ‘Vision of Saint Jerome’ by Parmigianino at the National Gallery. The painting was acquired 200 years ago when the gallery first opened and it’s great to see it displayed in its own space surrounded by fascinating sketches and outline plans.

Wow! You enter room 46 of the National Gallery and see this enormous, elongated painting in front of you. It was painted by the precociously talented young Renaissance painter, Parmigianino in around 1527. He was only 23 years old when he complete this astonishing commission for noblewoman Maria Bufalini as an altarpiece.

This one-man, one-room show is accompanied by drawings which illuminate the artist’s thinking and planning for this painting. With such a tall and thin space to fill, the composition had to be carefully worked out. The brief stipulated that the image must feature the Madonna and child, St Jerome and St John the Baptist. St Jerome is pictured reclining in a sylvan space and experiencing this fabulous vision. It’s such a robust and lively image, so well arranged with a real ‘line of beauty’ sinuously snaking through the figures giving the impression of circles and swirls within the picture space.

The accompanying drawings are fascinating too and so excellently done. You can see how the young artist sketched from life at speed to work out the poses of his figures. He was as brilliant with red chalk as he was with pen and ink and watercolour.