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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Nicholas of Tolentino 1636 oil on canvas private collection, Tolentino |
"According to [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia, the painting, listed under 1637, was commissioned by 'Sig. Benaducio', chief law enforcement officer of Ferrara. The Tolentino-born patron paid Guercino 40 scudi for the picture on 17 January 1637, which must have been completed the previous year. His local saint, Nicholas of Tolentino, was an Augustinian hermit. As here, he is usually represented in the black habit of his order, with a star on his breast, which alludes to the comet that was apparently seen at his birth. His intercession was often sought for protection against the plague. His most frequent attribute is a crucifix encircled by lilies."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sisyphus (lost painting) 1636 drawing (compositional study) Royal Library, Windsor |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sisyphus (lost painting) 1636 drawing (compositional study) Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sisyphus (lost painting) 1636 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sisyphus (lost painting) 1636 drawing (recto) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sisyphus (lost painting) 1636 drawing (verso) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
"Though the painting [of Sisyphus] no longer survives, some idea of its appearance can be gained from a group of drawings, in which Guercino studied the full-length figure carrying a large rock in a wide variety of poses. . . . The picture was commissioned in 1636 by Conte Girolamo Ranuzzi of Bologna, one of Guercino's most influential local clients, and the count's payment of 100 ducats (131 scudi and 1 lira) – Guercino's standard price for a picture with a whole-length figure – is recorded in the account book on 28 October 1636."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Paul 1636-37 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Cato bidding Farewell to his Son 1637 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Cato bidding Farewell to his Son 1637 drawing (compositional study) Royal Library, Windsor |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Cato bidding Farewell to his Son 1637 drawing (compositional study) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
"Louis Phélypeaux, Sieur de La Vrillière, Secretary of State to Louis XIII, commissioned [Cato bidding Farewell to his Son] in 1635. . . . Malvasia's shorter record gives the picture's subject, the patron's name and confirms that the canvas was finished in 1637. The refurbishment of his Parisian mansion, the Hôtel de La Vrillière, later the Hôtel Toulouse and now the Banque de France in the rue Vivienne, was La Vrillière's passion. The gallery was decorated with large-sized paintings, mostly by the great Italian masters of the day, representing subjects from Roman history. Guercino's Cato bidding Farewell to his Son, together with Poussin's Schoolmaster of Falerii, were the first to be delivered, in 1637. . . . During the French Revolution, after the death of the then owner, Louis-Jean-Marie de Bourbon, Duc de Penthièvre (1725-93), the pictures in the property were requisitioned, and their place was later taken by 19th-century copies."
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| Guercino (or anonymous follower) Triumph of David 1637 oil on canvas Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Triumph of David 1637 drawing (compositional study) Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
"[The Triumph of David] is a difficult picture, all the harder to interpret owing to its poor condition. In the official booklet to the paintings in Burghley House, published in 2016 under the direction of John Somerville, Honorary Keeper of Pictures, it is described as studio of Guercino. The figures are curiously wooden and the handling lacks the verve that is so characteristic of Guercino's touch. Perhaps because of its illustrious provenance, from the collection of the Casa Colonna, Rome, the attribution to Guercino himself has been given the benefit of the doubt."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin of the Rosary with Sts Dominic and Catherine of Siena 1637 oil on canvas Chiesa di San Domenico, Turin |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin of the Rosary with Sts Dominic and Catherine of Siena 1637 drawing (compositional study) Morgan Library, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Virgin of the Rosary with Sts Dominic and Catherine of Siena 1637 drawing (compositional study) British Museum |
"[The altarpiece of the Virgin of the Rosary was commissioned by Amadeo dal Pozzo, Marchese di Voghera, on behalf of the Compagnia di San Rosario, Turin.] Before Guercino was able to put brush to canvas, he had to send a drawn modello to the Marchese, to be shown for approval to representatives of the confraternity. A drawing [directly above] in the British Museum could be that drawing, but it is more likely to be a study for it. The Marchese went to Rome in person to find lapis lazuli (which he then forwarded to Cento), oversaw the execution of the picture at every stage, and supervised the crating and despatch of the picture to Turin."
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)