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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Venus, Mars and Cupid 1633 oil on canvas Galleria Estense, Modena |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Venus, Mars and Cupid (detail) 1633 oil on canvas Galleria Estense, Modena |
"The seated figure of Venus, pointing knowingly at the viewer to guide Cupid's aim, is one of the most successful of Guercino's inventions. Her pose – except for the pointing hand – is based on that of the Muse seated at lower right in the woodcut by Ugo da Carpi (fl. 1502-32), Apollo Ordering the Expulsion of Envy from the Temple of the Muses [directly below], after a design by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), datable c. 1530."
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| Ugo da Carpi after Baldassare Peruzzi Apollo ordering the Expulsion of Envy from the Temple of the Muses ca. 1530 chiaroscuro woodcut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Venus, Mars and Cupid 1633 drawing (compositional study) British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Venus, Mars and Cupid 1633 drawing (compositional study) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Giovanni Ottaviani after Guercino Venus, Mars and Cupid 1764 etching after Guercino drawing Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
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| J.M.W. Turner after Guercino Venus, Mars and Cupid 1802 watercolor copy sketch Tate Britain |
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| Gérard-René Levillain after Guercino Venus, Mars and Cupid ca. 1804-15 etching and engraving British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin and Child with the Apostle St Matthias and St Andrew Corsini (lost painting) 1633-34 drawing (compositional study) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
"[Carlo Cesare] Malvasia reported that this picture [the Virgin and Child with the Apostle St Matthias and St Andrew Corsini], intended for the Chiesa del Carmine, Brescia, was carried out in 1633. Payments totalling 300 ducats were made for it on 20 April 1633, 25 June 1633 and 18 March 1634. The altarpiece, recorded in the older guides to Brescia, disappeared probably towards the end of the 18th century. No visual record of it has survived, apart from Guercino's rapid compositional study in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin and Child appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch 1632-34 oil on canvas private collection |
"Malvasia dated the altarpiece [the Virgin and Child Appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch] to 1634, saying it was painted for the church [sic] of Nonantola. In fact, it was intended for the Emilian town's then newly built oratory as a votive offering for the ending of the plague that had raged across North Italy in 1629-30. On 27 January 1632, the account book records an advance payment of 15 Spanish doubloons, the equivalent of 52 scudi, from a 'Sig.ʳ Luigi Spontoni' and an agreed full price of 300 ducats. The second payment, of 348 scudi made on 11 August 1634, names the patron as Conte Antonio Maria Sartorio. . . . According to [Giuseppe] Campori, in 1796 or soon after, the then Count Sartorio removed the picture from the oratory, perhaps wanting to cash in on a family treasure rather than see it requisitioned by the French, and sold it to an unknown buyer in Bologna. It was lost to sight until 1988."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin and Child appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch 1632-34 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin and Child appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch 1632-34 drawing (compositional study) Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana |
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| anonymous Bolognese artist after Guercino Virgin and Child appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch 18th century (copy of lost Guercino drawing) British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin and Child appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch 1632-34 drawing (figure study) Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Sebastian tied to a Tree ca. 1634 oil on canvas Princeton University Art Museum |
"The subject seems to be a spin-off from the figure of St Sebastian in Guercino's altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Appearing to Sts Sebastian and Roch. . . . In the altarpiece, St Sebastian appears prominently at left, tied to a tree trunk, with his body in profile to the right. In several preparatory drawing for the picture, however, he appears on the right, as in this canvas. Indeed, the resemblance between the figure in the present painting to that of the saint in some of these discarded preparatory drawings is so striking as to suggest that it may have been based directly on one or more of them."
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)