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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Vision of St Augustine 1635 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
"The picture is in poor condition. Though [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia cited it under 1636, it was probably completed in 1635, as the account book records that Conte Giovanni Niccolò Tanari paid the total amount of 150 Venetian ducats (196 scudi and 3.10 lire) on behalf of Abate Peretti of Naples on 28 January 1636. In 1746 it was in the collection of Elisabetta [Isabel] Farnese (1692-1766), wife of King Philip V, at the Palacio Real de La Granja de S. Ildefonso, north of Madrid."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Vision of St Augustine 1635 drawing (compositional study) Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Vision of St Augustine 1635 drawing (drapery study - St Augustine) Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
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| Guercino Vision of St Augustine 1635 drawing (figure study - Child) British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 oil on canvas Chiesa di San Martino, Siena |
"According to Malvasia's unusually full commentary, the altarpiece was painted not in Guercino's Cento studio but in Bologna in the house of his patron [Procurator Giovanni Francesco Tamburini]. . . . The picture's rapid deterioration soon after its installation in Siena prompted Cardinal Colonna to have it copied by Giacinto Campana to preserve its appearance for posterity. It remains in situ, but is a complete wreck. Was damp the only cause of the rapid ruination of this expensive altarpiece? The explanation seems valid enough, but Guercino's temporary studio quarters may have played a part. He may not have had the facilities to mix his pigments properly, or the solvents with which he was supplied may have been defective."
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| Fra Antonio Lorenzini after Guercino Martyrdom of St Bartholomew ca. 1685 etching British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (compositional study) Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (compositional study) British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (compositional study) Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (compositional study) Morgan Library, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (compositional study) Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Jusepe de Ribera Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1624 etching British Museum |
"When devising new compositions, Guercino often recycled his earlier ideas. In the case of this altarpiece, he subtly cannibalized motifs from the work of two distinguished contemporaries. His most obvious debt, in general design and detail, is to Jusepe de Ribera's 1624 etching of the subject [directly above]. Not only are Guercino's saint and the right-hand executioner directly inspired by their counterparts in Ribera's print, so, too, is the executioner at left, now flipped the other way around, as well as the gaggle of spectators at right, including a soldier in armour, his left arm akimbo. Less obvious is Guercino's adaptation of the large winged angel [below], who indicates the heavens to the dying saint, and two associated putti riding behind him, from Domenichino's God the Father with angels in the Rebuke of Adam and Eve [also below], painted in 1623-25, now in the Musée de Grenoble. In his turn, Domenichino was inspired by Michelangelo's God the Father with angels and putti [also below] in the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel ceiling of a century before."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew 1635-36 drawing (figure study - Angel) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Domenichino Rebuke of Adam and Eve 1623-25 oil on copper Musée de Grenoble |
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| Michelangelo God the Father, from the Creation of Adam 1508-1512 fresco Sistine Chapel, St Peter's Basilica, Rome |
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)