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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Death of Dido 1630-31 oil on canvas Galleria Spada, Rome |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Death of Dido 1630-31 drawing (compositional study) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Death of Dido 1630-31 drawing (figure study - Attendant) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Death of Dido 1630-31 drawing (figure study - background Soldier) Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
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| Robert Strange after Guercino Death of Dido 1776 etching British Museum |
"For many years now, Guercino's Death of Dido has been shown in the long gallery of the Galleria Spada opposite the copy by Giacinto Campana (c. 1600-50) of Guido Reni's Rape of Helen [directly below], now in the Louvre. Cardinal Bernardino Spada was Papal Nuncio to France (1623-7), then Papel Legate to Bologna (1627-31), the former appointment accounting for the present commission's strong French connection. . . . The idea that Guercino should paint a Dido was probably first mooted to the painter in a letter of 27 October 1629 from Cardinal Spada, who from his time in France had become a fast friend of the Queen Mother of France, Maria de' Medici. Soon after Spada had attempted to buy Reni's Rape of Helen for the Queen Mother, he wrote to Guercino [proposing the creation of a Dido as companion piece]. Had the Cardinal's plans come to fruition, he obviously intended the two paintings to be paired in the Queen Mother's collection. . . . However, both plans were abandoned owing to the political upheavals in France that began in the autumn of 1630 and eventually led to the Queen fleeing the country on 18 July 1631. As the account book shows, Cardinal Spada had to assume payment for the Dido, remitting 400 scudi for it on 14 November 1631, but the finished picture was stuck in Bologna because of the ban on the movement of persons or objects out of Emilia during the plague of 1631. It was only in April of 1632 that it eventually made its way to Spada's palace in Rome."
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| Guido Reni Rape of Helen ca. 1626-29 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus 1631 ceiling fresco in stucco frame by another hand Palazzo Talon (formerly Sampieri), Bologna |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus (detail) 1631 ceiling fresco Palazzo Talon (formerly Sampieri), Bologna |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus (detail) 1631 ceiling fresco Palazzo Talon (formerly Sampieri), Bologna |
"The fresco is in the centre of the ceiling of a ground-floor room of the Palazzo Sampieri, now Talon, of which three other rooms had been painted by the Carracci. [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia recorded the fresco in 1631 and remarked that the painter was so well versed in drawing that he was able to paint it without the use of a cartoon. He was paid 100 scudi on 6 October 1631 – presumably 50 scudi for each figure."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus 1631 drawing (compositional study) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus 1631 drawing (figure study - Antaeus) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Hercules and Antaeus 1631 drawing (figure study - Antaeus) Staatsgalerie Stuttgart |
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard after Guercino Hercules and Antaeus ca. 1760 copy drawing Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen |
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| Paolo Antonio Barbieri (brother of Guercino) Portrait of Guercino with his mother, Elena Ghisellini and a Lagotto Romagnolo dog ca. 1630 oil on canvas Fondazione Sorgente Group, Rome |
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)