Cesare Gennari

Though born in Cento, Cesare moved to Bologna in 1643 on his uncle Guercino's instigation, moving into the latter's home and entering his workshop with his painter brother Benedetto Gennari. Upon Guercino's death in 1666 Cesare took over his uncle's workshop, running it together with his brother Benedetto until 1672 (the year of the latter's departure for Paris). Although chronology in Cesare's oeuvre is difficult to establish, it is reasonable to assume that this painting is a relatively early work dating from the first half of the 1660s: Emilio Negro and Nicosetta Roio have tentatively suggested that Guercino may have had a hand in its execution, thus providing a terminus ante quem of 1666 (year of Guercino's death). The painting is comparable in style to Cesare's paintings of La Pittura in Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, which is signed and dated 1661, and his Mary Magdalene in Cento, Pinacoteca Civica (see Negro, Pirondini & Roio, under Literature, figs. 373 and 375). Cesare, of all the Gennari family of painters, is the one whose style is most closely associated with that of Guercino and, according to Prisco Bagni, he was the one who best understood his uncle's art (see P. Bagni, in Il Guercino, exhibition catalogue, Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico; Cento, Pinacoteca Civica and Chiostro del Rosario, 6 September - 10 November 1991, p. 481).

The attribution to Cesare Gennari was first proposed by Sir Denis Mahon upon first-hand inspection of the painting in August 1989, and was later independently confirmed by Nicholas Turner on the basis of photographs (private communications to the owner).