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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Apollo flaying Marsyas (painting unlocated, possibly lost) 1637 drawing (figure study - Apollo) Royal Library, Windsor |
"Under 1637 [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia recorded a painting of Apollo and Marsyas for Senatore Saulo Guidotti (1601-65), whose payment of 500 lire in Cento currency ('moneta di Cento'), the equivalent of 125 scudi, for a half-length depiction of the subject, was made on 18 December 1637."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Allegory of Painting and Sculpture 1637 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Allegory of Painting and Sculpture 1637 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Allegory of Painting and Sculpture 1637 drawing (study for figure of Painting) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
"On 21 April 1638, the Comunità di Cento paid 130 ducats (164 ½ scudi) for the Allegory of Painting and Sculpture. According to the account book, it had been intended as a gift for Cardinal Girolamo Colonna, Archbishop of Bologna, and had already been received by him. . . . The painting must have swiftly reached Rome, as it already appears in an inventory of the Cardinal's collection of pictures in 1642, and it appeared in numerous subsequent Colonna inventories, until it was sold c. 1800 along with several other pictures. . . . After it entered the Torlonia collection [in Rome] the picture retained its traditional attribution to Guercino, which was maintained when it was given to the Galleria Nazionale, Rome, in 1892, along with the rest of the Torlonia donation. Around the middle of the 20th century it was demoted, and from 1957 to 1994 it was placed on deposit at the Ministero dell'Interno as a work of Guercino's school. In 1996, Rossella Vodret was the first to publish the picture with the former attribution to Guercino rightly restored."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Sts Augustine, John the Baptist and Paul the Hermit 1637-38 oil on canvas Basilica di Sant'Agostino, Rome |
"Malvasia listed the altarpiece under 1638, naming the 'Padre Generale Agostiniano' as its patron and the church of Sant'Agostino, Rome, as its destination. . . . In the early guides to Rome, the two lateral canvases by [Giovanni] Lanfranco in the church – St Augustine Washing Christ's Feet and St Augustine Trampling on Heresy, to the left and right, respectively [both below] – are often given to Guercino. The altarpiece was not included in the 1968 Guercino exhibition as its condition was not thought adequate because of extensive overpainting, and this is one reason why it is less well-known than Guercino's other great metropolitan altarpieces."
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| Giovanni Lanfranco St Augustine washing Christ's Feet (installed to the left of Guercino's altarpiece) 1636 oil on canvas Basilica di Sant'Agostino, Rome |
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| Giovanni Lanfranco St Augustine trampling on Heresy (installed to the right of Guercino's altarpiece) 1636 oil on canvas Basilica di Sant'Agostino, Rome |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Joseph with the Christ Child 1637-38 oil on canvas National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Judith with the Head of Holofernes (painting unlocated, possibly lost) 1637-38 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
"The commission was listed by Malvasia under 1637, with the comment that the picture [Judith with the Head of Holofernes] was for 'la Principessa Serenissima di Mantova'. On 12 July 1638, the Duke paid 200 ducats (258 scudi, 1 lira) for it, as well as for two still lives by Paolo Antonio [Barbieri], one of flowers and the other of fruits, both now lost. They were likely 35 ducats each. Guercino's fee for two half-lengths would have been 130 ducats."
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| anonymous copyist after Guercino Salome receiving the Head of St John the Baptist (copy of lost painting) 1637-38 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Civica, Cento |
"If Ludovico Mastri was forced to cede his commissioned picture of Salome Receiving the Head of St John the Baptist, now at Rennes, to the Duke of Modena, the drawings that Guercino originally made for that composition were reused for this variant treatment of the subject painted soon afterwards. For this less ambitious treatment of the subject, Guercino was paid 80 ducats (105 scudi) by Mastri on 20 September 1638. This second treatment was reportedly destroyed by fire, but there is good reason to believe that its appearance is recorded in a painting [above] in the Pinacoteca Civica, Cento, which shows a variant composition to that of Rennes. The Cento picture, datable to c. 1637 on stylistic grounds, is generally thought to be by a studio hand, perhaps that of Bartolomeo or Ercole Gennari."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Salome receiving the Head of St John the Baptist 1637-38 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Salome receiving the Head of St John the Baptist 1637-38 drawing (compositional study) Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Salome receiving the Head of St John the Baptist 1637-38 drawing (compositional study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Jerome ca. 1638 oil on canvas private collection |
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)