Sunday, May 23, 2021

Guercino in Bologna - 1645

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Hersilia separating Romulus and Tatius
(Battle of the Sabines)

1645
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Painted for the Parisian hôtel of Louis Phélypeaux, Sieur de La Vrillière, Secretary of State to Louis XIII, who had commissioned Cato bidding Farewell to his Son in 1637 and Coriolanus in 1643. 

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Hersilia separating Romulus and Tatius
1645
drawing (figure study)
Royal Library, Windsor

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Hersilia separating Romulus and Tatius
1645
drawing (head study)
private collection

Guercino
Hersilia separating
Romulus and Tatius

1645
drawing (figure study)
Courtauld Gallery, London

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Penitent Magdalene
1645
oil on canvas
private collection

"[The Penitent Magdalene of 1645 was commissioned by Count Panici of Macerata, a former governor of Cento.]  Before its sale at auction in Zurich in 2011, the picture formed part of the Hohenzollern collection at Schloss Hechingen, Baden Würtemburg." 

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Lucretia and St Gertrude
1645
oil on canvas
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

For the figure of St Lucretia (on the left, above), a 4th-century virgin martyr of Spain, Guercino reversed and reused the head and shoulders of his image of a pagan who bore the same name – the early Roman heroine Lucretia (below) painted the previous year.    

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Lucretia
1644
oil on canvas
UniCredit, Bologna

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Lucretia and St Gertrude
1645
drawing (figure-study - Putto)
private collection

Luigi Cunego after Guercino
Pietà
(lost painting)
1645
engraving made in 1783, when the work 
hung in the Galleria Colonna, Rome
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Queen Semiramis receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon
1645
oil on canvas (trial version)
Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands, Surrey

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Queen Semiramis receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon
1645
drawing (compositional study)
Princeton University Art Museum

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Queen Semiramis receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon
1645
drawing (compositional study)
Royal Library, Windsor

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Queen Semiramis receiving
News of the Revolt of Babylon

1645
drawing (figure study)
Royal Library, Windsor

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Queen Semiramis receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon
1645
oil on canvas (finished version)
private collection, New York

Caterina Piotti Pirola after Guercino
Queen Semiramis receiving News of the Revolt of Babylon
1830
engraving
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

"[Guercino had painted two earlier versions of this subject, in 1624 and in 1627-28.]  In both, Semiramis is seated on her throne as she turns to listen to the messenger announcing the news of the revolt of Babylon.  In the commission of more than 15 years later for Cardinal [Federigo] Cornaro, she stands up to face the messenger, raising her hand in surprise and in the excitement of the moment jolting the table in front of her and setting her crown askew."   

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