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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
"[Carlo Cesare] Malvasia, after recording that Guercino 'Fece quest'anno [1620] la tavola senza paragone bellissima in S. Gregorio di Bologna all'Atare del Sig. Christoforo Locatelli, per mezzo del padre Mirandola, e gli la pagò 150 scudi', went on to praise the work with unbridled enthusiasm, echoing that of other early writers who visited Bologna and saw the altarpiece, such as John Evelyn (1645), Antonio di Paolo Masini (1650), Francesco Scannelli (1657), Balthasar de Monconys (1664), and Luigi Scaramuccia (1674). This, the culmination of Guercino's youthful style and his first work on public display in Bologna [other than the 1618 fresco of Hercules Killing the Hydra on the exterior of Palazzo Tanari], was commissioned by Cristoforo Locatelli and hung in S. Gregorio next to an altarpiece (still in situ) of Sts Michael the Archangel and George and the Princess in Distress [directly below] by his mentor, Ludovico Carracci, who had just died the previous year."
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| Ludovico Carracci St Michael Archangel and St George and the Princess in Distress ca. 1600-1601 oil on canvas Chiesa dei Santi Gregorio e Siro, Bologna |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (compositional study) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (compositional study) Musée du Louvre |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (figure study, St William) Pinacoteca Civica, Cento |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (figure study, St William) Royal Library, Windsor |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (figure studies, background soldiers) Royal Library, Windsor |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (figure study, background soldier) Musée du Louvre |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (compositional study, Virgin and Child in clouds) Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 drawing (drapery study, Virgin) Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
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| anonymous printmaker after Guercino St William receiving the Monastic Habit (detail of Virgin and Child in clouds with Angel and Saints) ca. 1626-47 etching (published by Callisto Ferranti) British Museum |
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| Francesco Rosaspina after Guercino St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1620 engraving Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Giuseppe Maria Mitelli after Guercino St William receiving the Monastic Habit 1678 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Cupid seated on a Ledge ca. 1620 oil on canvas private collection |
"Guercino adopted the pose of this pudgy Cupid seated on a ledge from that of the Christ Child in the St William Receiving the Monastic Habit. . . . The Cupid corresponds roughly in size with the Christ Child in the altarpiece and must have been based on a tracing, though with adjustments."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Helmeted Soldier drawing a Sword ca. 1620 oil on canvas private collection |
"Recognized by Giuseppe Fiocco as an autograph work by Guercino, the picture was published for the first time by Gian Lorenzo Mellini in 1987. . . . It has been overlooked in the subsequent literature on the artist. Mellini, who identified the subject as Tancred in Love, pointed out that the half-length figure is loosely based, in reverse, on the helmeted soldier holding the staff of a banner, and talking to monk, at the lower right of St William Receiving the Monastic Habit."
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)