• parse() already normalizes prop=None to prop=FontProperties().
• We don't need to explicitly attach a canvas to a plain Figure() before
  calling savefig() anymore; FigureCanvasBase is always attached and
  handles the dispatching to the correct concrete canvas class.

PR Summary

PR Checklist

• Has pytest style unit tests (and pytest passes).
• Is Flake 8 compliant (run flake8 on changed files to check).
• New features are documented, with examples if plot related.
• Documentation is sphinx and numpydoc compliant (the docs should build without error).
• Conforms to Matplotlib style conventions (install flake8-docstrings and run flake8 --docstring-convention=all).
• New features have an entry in doc/users/next_whats_new/ (follow instructions in README.rst there).
• API changes documented in doc/api/next_api_changes/ (follow instructions in README.rst there).