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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mars and Cupid 1649 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
"The original patron, 'General Barone Mattei', was possibly Luigi Mattei (d. 1675), Marchese di Belmonte, commander of the papal armies under Popes Urban VIII and Innocent X during the Wars of Castro (1641-9) waged against the Farnese Dukes of Parma and their allies. The First War of Castro (1641-4) led to the heavy defeat of papal forces, but in the shorter, Second War of Castro (1649), Mattei routed the Farnese armies, taking Castro and razing it to the ground. The siege in the right background in the Cincinnati painting is perhaps a reference to the patron's role as a military commander. In the painting the amoretto flies in the air, piercing a heart with his arrow, while Mars gazes to the right, where Venus would have appeared in the lost pendant."
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| by or after Guercino Mars restrained by Cupid 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
"As [Carlo Cesare] Malvasia surmised, this picture is likely to reflect an early idea for the painting of Mars and Cupid, now in the Cincinnati Art Museum, but showing the composition in an upright rather than horizontal format, with the god of war striding forward determinedly, his left arm outstretched, instead of calmly sitting on the ground, his weapons cast aside. In the upright composition, the protagonists are engaged in a discomfiting battle of wills, which Guercino struggled to represent in a memorable sequence of preparatory drawings [partially represented below]."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mars restrained by Cupid 1649 drawing (compositional study) Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mars restrained by Cupid 1649 drawing (compositional study) British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mars restrained by Cupid 1649 drawing (compositional study) Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Mars restrained by Cupid 1649 drawing (compositional study) Musée du Louvre |
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| Giacomo Maria Giovannini after Guercino Mars restrained by Cupid ca. 1700 etching and engraving British Museum |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Penitent Magdalene 1649 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Penitent Magdalene 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) Penitent Magdalene 1649 oil on canvas private collection, New York |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Jerome in the Desert 1649 oil on canvas Église Saint-Laurent de Nogent-sur-Seine |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Jerome in the Desert 1649 drawing (figure study) private collection |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Francis Receiving the Stigmata 1649 oil on canvas Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta di Carignano, Genoa |
"The present altarpiece [St Francis Receiving the Stigmata], not mentioned by Malvasia, was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria Macchiavelli (1608-53). Bishop of Ferrara, for his private use and is alone among Guercino's paintings of the subject that was not originally intended for the decoration of a church, though it was soon to perform just such a role. . . . Francesco Maria Sauli (1620-99), the doge of the Republic of Genoa in the last two years of his life, bought Guercino's canvas in 1672. Like family predecessors, he was much occupied in the care of the family church, the basilica of S. Maria Assunta di Carignano, built by Galeazzo Alessi (1512-72) in the middle of the previous century, where he was to be buried. His concern in the closing years of the 17th century was the decoration of the interior, including the installation of new sculptures and altarpieces. Some of the older altarpieces, as well as Guercino's newly acquired canvas, had to be extended to fit the large openings of the monumental lateral chapels. Guercino's canvas was enlarged on all four sides by Domenico Piola (1627-1703), who added the figure of Christ in the form of Seraphim, in the upper addition: tree covered cliffs on both sides, including a tree whose branches are overpainted in the sky of Guercino's canvas; and a rocky platform below."
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Cecilia 1649 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) St Cecilia 1649 drawing (figure study) Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
– quoted texts from The Paintings of Guercino: a revised and expanded catalogue raisonné by Nicholas Turner (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 2017)