Thursday, May 6, 2021

Guercino in Cento - 1635-1636

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Joseph holding his Flowering Rod
ca. 1635
oil on canvas
Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Cesare and Benedetto Gennari after Guercino
St Roch with the Virgin of the Plague
(lost painting of 1635-36)
copied in 1668
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ferrara

"By staying the hand of the avenging angel, the Virgin symbolically halts the outbreak of the plague.  In the background, in the lower half of the picture, the towers of Ferrara can be seen, while in the foreground lie the corpses of the plague-stricken.  . . .  Guercino's altarpiece had already suffered severe damage before his death, and, according to the annotator of [Girolamo] Baruffaldi's Vite, on 8 August 1661 the artist was paid 52 scudi 2 lire for retouching it.  Seven years later it was removed and replaced by a copy by his two nephews, Cesare and Benedetto Gennari.  . . .  Following another restoration in 1717, Guercino's original continued to deteriorate, and by 1872 all trace of it had been lost."

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St Roch with the Virgin of the Plague
(lost painting)
1635-36
drawing (figure studies - Putti)
Morgan Library, New York

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
St John the Evangelist as an Old Man
1636
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Egidio Martini, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Virgin and Child with an Open Book
1636
oil on canvas
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
(painting destroyed in World War II)
1636
drawing (modello)
private collection

Charles Picart after Guercino
Offering of Abigail
ca. 1815
etching and engraving
British Museum

"[Carlo Cesare] Malvasia recorded this 'gran quadro' – destroyed during an air raid in 1941 – under the year 1636 and said it was painted for Cardinal Antonio Barberini.  On 8 August, the Cardinal paid the equivalent  of 508 scudi for it in reals.  The picture is listed in the Cardinal's inventory of 1644 of paintings and sculpture in the Palazzo Barberini.  . . .  It was later given to Cardinal Mazarin, from whom it passed into the collection of the Duc d'OrlĂ©ans and finally into the Bridgewater and Ellesmere collections [in London].  . . .  The painting was so well received that the letterati of the day, such as Girolamo Porti (d. 1660), competed to write poems in its praise." 

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (compositional study)
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (compositional study)
private collection

anonymous workshop copyist after Guercino
Offering of Abigail
(detail with David and followers)
1636
oil on canvas
private collection

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (head study - David)
British Museum

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (figure study - David)
British Museum

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (figure study - David)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Offering of Abigail
1636
drawing (head study - Abigail)
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Jean Massard after Guercino
Offering of Abigail
ca. 1786
etching and engraving
British Museum

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