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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Christ and the Samaritan Woman ca. 1619-20 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Christ and the Samaritan Woman ca. 1619-20 drawing (compositional study) Royal Library, Windsor |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Denial of St Peter ca. 1619-20 oil on canvas private collection, Zürich |
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| Giovanni Battista Pasqualini after Guercino Denial of St Peter 1627 engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
"[The Denial of St Peter] was not among the commissions of 1619-20 recorded by [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia for Cardinal Serra, but [Denis] Mahon nonetheless discovered a family connection with that patron through the inscription on the back of the canvas. The cardinal had a first cousin named Giovan Francesco Serra (1609-56) who established himself in Naples in 1631 and whose sister Maria Serra in 1633 married the Genoese patrician Domenico Cattaneo della Volta, created 1st Prince of San Nicandro in the Kingdom of Naples in 1649. In 1922 Ippolita Cattaneo della Volta (1897-1988), the daughter of the 9th Prince of San Nicandro, married Don Francesco Barberini (1898-1959), whose family sold the painting, probably between the wars. Pasqualini's print of the composition was probably made, as [Luigi] Salerno suggested, after a copy still in Guercino's studio in 1627, where a version, with three life-size, half-length figures, was recorded in the Gennari inventory of 1719."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Erminia and the Shepherd ca. 1619-20 oil on canvas Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, West Midlands |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Erminia and the Shepherd ca. 1619-20 drawing (figure study) Royal Library, Windsor |
"Though Malvasia was correct in naming Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, as the patron of [Erminia and the Shepherd], his text erroneously implies that the painting was ordered and delivered in 1618. However, the circumstances of the commission . . . are recorded in a letter from Guercino to the Duke, dated 17 December 1619. Earlier that year, Lorenzo Gennari had presented the Duke with Oliviero Gatti's volume of engravings of anatomical details with drawings by Guercino, a gesture that prompted the above request. Guercino, busy with work, personally delivered the painting to Mantua only in 1620."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Apollo and Marsyas ca. 1619-20 oil on canvas Banco Popolare dell' Emilia Romagna, Modena |
"Though no further finished version or larger composition is known, the summary brushwork of [Apollo and Marsyas] – already referred to as a 'sketch' in the 17th century – recalls early works by Annibale Carracci: it is still very 'Bolognese' and is thought to have been made c. 1619-20, before Guercino left for Rome."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Head of an Old Man ca. 1619-20 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
"Massimo Pulini was the first to show how profoundly Guercino's rendering of human emotion was influenced by poetics and the theatre. Pulini concluded, for instance, that the Head of an Old Man, formerly in the collection of Sir Denis Mahon, and now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, was intended to convey metaphysical contemplation – not the easiest of human expressions. He described it as 'an exercise in physiognomic expression, a study piece in the exteriorization of a state of mind.' . . . The painting (not a fragment, since its edges are intact) was surely made in its own right: lacking attributes and a halo, it does not represent a specific religious personage."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Vanitas ca.1619-20 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Elijah fed by Ravens 1620 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Elijah fed by Ravens 1620- drawing (compositional study) Portland Art Museum, Oregon |
"[Elijah Fed by Ravens] – which Malvasia says was executed in Ferrara in 1620 for Cardinal Serra – was identified by [Hermann] Voss in the Barberini collection, Rome, where it was on display throughout the 19th century. . . . It was purchased by Sir Denis Mahon in 1936 from Maria Barberini-Colonna (1872-1955), 8th Princess of Palestrina, following the death of her husband, Don Luigi Sacchetti-Barberini (1863-1936), Principe di Palestrina. In 1987 Mahon gave it on long-term loan to the National Gallery, to which he sold it in 2009."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mystic Marriage of St Catherine 1620 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
"According to Malvasia, [The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine] was the first work painted by Guercino in 1620 on commission for a certain 'Cavalier Piombini' of Cento, a statement confirmed by [Girolamo] Baruffaldi's account. During the late 18th century it was almost certainly at Corsham Court, Wiltshire, probably having been inherited with the collection assembled in Italy by Sir Paul Metheun (1672-1757); shortly after 1838 it passed into the collection of Henry Gilbert of Devizes. In 1958 it was purchased by Denis Mahon, who sold it to the museum in West Berlin 12 years later."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mystic Marriage of St Catherine 1620 drawing (compositional study) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mystic Marriage of St Catherine 1620 drawing (figure study) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)