Guido Reni

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 28 June 1979, lot 146;
acquired in 1998 

Laid down most probably more than once, generally in good condition and the chalk quite fresh. Some sort of staining (possibly on the back) which is has come through slightly to the recto: a very light grey colour slightly visible at the top coming down the length of the sheet. Also a defect of the paper towards the left margin.
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The present sheet was accepted as the work of Guido Reni by the late Stephen Pepper, who also believed it to be a self-portrait. Nicholas Turner has, in a recent communication, confirmed his own previous attribution of the drawing to Reni, noting that it 'has all the strength of form and simplicity of touch of the master'. Although Pepper's idea that this could be a self-portrait is appealing, comparison with the painted and drawn portraits of Reni by Simone Cantarini (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, and Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, respectively) suggests this hypothesis is not sustainable.¹ 

The biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia reports that after Reni's death, the master's drawings were sold for nothing, and in bundles: i disegni si vendevano a masse intere per vil prezzo. This implies the existence at that time of a quantity of studies by Reni which is at odds with very small number of the artist's drawings that survive today. The largest group is now preserved in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, where there are roughly fifty drawings by the master, and another significant group is in the Albertina, Vienna. The present study seems to have been made from life.  Although the artist appears to have used a softer red chalk in some areas to indicate the flesh tones, the overall simplification of the lines and the hatching are very characteristic of his style.

1. See respectively Simone Cantarini detto il Pesarese, 1612-1648, exhibition catalogue, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Milan 1997, p. 105, no. I.17, and Guido Reni, exhibition catalogue, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale et al, 1988, p. 18, fig. 1