Guercino in Cento - 1638-1639 (III)

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Roman Charity
1638-39
oil on canvas (trial version)
private collection

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Roman Charity
1638-39
drawing (compositional study)
private collection

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Roman Charity
1638-39
drawing (compositional study)
Royal Library, Windsor

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Roman Charity
1638-39
oil on canvas (finished version)
Schoeppler Collection, London

"[Roman Charity] was commissioned by Marchese Cornelio II Bentivoglio as a gift for Cardinal Mazarin.  . . .  Two inventories of Cardinal Mazarin's effects, dated 1653 and 1661, mention Guercino's painting as a 'Charité Romaine', horizontal in composition, with life-size figures.  . . .  Resolving the action of these two figures exercised Guercino greatly, as can be seen from several preparatory drawings."

workshop copyist after Guercino
St George and the Dragon
(copy of lost painting)
1639
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St George and the Dragon
(modello for lost painting)
ca. 1639
drawing
private collection

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St George and the Dragon
(compositional study for lost painting)
ca. 1639
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

"[St George and the Dragon] with life-sized figures was ordered in 1637 by Padre Angelo Torre, Abbot of S. Francesca Romana, Ferrara.  According to Malvasia, it was completed two years later.  The appearance of the lost original is preserved in a studio copy [reproduced above in monochrome] belonging to the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.  . . .  [An apparent source of inspiration was] Lelio Orsi's exquisite St George and the Dragon [directly below] in the Capodimonte, Naples, which from at least the early 18th century was in the Canopi collection, Bologna, until acquired by the Farnese, with whose ownership it passed to Parma and then to Naples."

Lelio Orsi
St George and the Dragon
1550
oil on canvas
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Penitent St Peter
1639
oil on canvas
Palazzo Venezia, Rome

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Penitent St Peter
1639
drawing (compositional study)
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Penitent St Peter
1639
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Carlo Faucci after Guercino
Penitent St Peter
1786
engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Peter Weeping
ca. 1639
oil on canvas
private collection

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Peter Weeping
ca. 1639
drawing (compositional study)
Detroit Institute of Arts

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Peter Weeping
ca. 1639
oil on canvas
private collection

– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)