Guercino Guardian Angel 1641 oil on canvas Museo Civico, Fano |
Robert Browning, living with Elizabeth Barrett in Italy, wrote the heartfelt but preposterous sonnet below in 1848 to mark the couple's encounter with the painting by Guercino that is reproduced above.
We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul's content
– My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)
And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong –
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
Guercino St Jerome in the Desert 1641 oil on canvas Museo Civico di Rimini |
Guercino Mars with Cupid 1649 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum |
Guercino Atlas oil on canvas 1646 Museo Bardini, Florence |
Guercino Hersilia separating Romulus and Tatius 1645 oil on canvas Louvre |
Guercino Christ appearing to St Teresa 1634 oil on canvas Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence |
Guercino St Romuald 1642 oil on canavs Pinacoteca Comunale di Ravenna |
Guercino St Marguerite 1644 canvas San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome |
Guercino Penitent Magdalene 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
Guercino Cleopatra and Octavian ca. 1640 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
Guercino Death of Cleopatra 1648 oil on canvas Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa |
Guercino Salome receiving the head of St John the Baptist 1637 canvas Musée des beaux arts de Rennes |
Guercino The Persian Sibyl 1647-48 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
Guercino Allegory of painting and sculpture 1637 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
Guercino Disegno and Colore ca. 1640 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |