Cesare Gennari Cento 1637 - 1688 Bologna

Richard, 4^th Baron Coleridge (1905-1984);
Thence by descent to the present owners.

On the death of his uncle Guercino in 1666, Cesare immediately took on the running of his Bologna workshop. Here he had begun his artistic career, moving there from Cento in 1643 as a six year old. He remained in this role, along with his brother Benedetto, until the latter's departure for Paris in 1672 and it is to this period that the present work may be dated.  In the handling of the palette this painting may be compared with two slightly earlier dated works, of 1661, the Allegory of Charity and Allegory of Painting (both Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'arte Antica¹) but its overall greater delicacy argues for a dating slightly later than these, to circa 1670.

¹ E. Negro et al., La Scuola del Guercino, Modena 2004, pp. 226-27, reproduced figs. 372, 373.