Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

G. Huquier (inscription on the verso in pen and ink: cabinet D huquier/Guerchin N 49);
Sale, London, Christie's, 2 March 1978, lot 14 (as Attributed to Guercino)

Laid down and fixed to 18th Century mount, possibly that of Huquier. Surface damage at lower left quarter due to silver fish. Repaired losses to upper right corner. Large area of staining at centre, although less prominent in the drawing than appears in the catalogue illustration. Unframed
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We are grateful to Nicholas Turner who has confirmed the attribution to Guercino and provided the following information. The drawing is related, with differences, to Guercino's painting of the same subject now in the Pinacoteca, Bologna (fig.1), one of a set of four penitent saints executed around 1652-55 for the decoration of the artist's own house in Bologna, later known as Casa Gennari.  A rapid preparatory study for the figure of St. Paul was sold in 1981,¹ which must represent an earlier idea as the saint is shown kneeling in a space that is upright in format to suit a vertical canvas.  As Turner points out, these two drawings are examples of opposite extremes in Guercino's graphic procedures. The present study has been brought to a very high degree of finish and subtlety while the sketch for the same figure is a quick drawing, done in a matter of minutes to record an idea, and is drawn in Guercino's characteristic late chalk style, a faltering, broken line.

A study for the figure of the penitent Magdalene connected with another painting of the series (Bologna, Pinacoteca),² was formerly on the London art market.³  That drawing is also in red chalk and appears in its degree of finish and style to lie between the present work and the other, sketchy study for St. Paul.  Turner comments that it remains uncertain why Guercino adopted a 'presentation style' for the present St. Paul and whether he made equivalent drawings for the other three subjects.  Although they do exist, Modelli of this type are rare in Guercino's late graphic work, and it is assumed that they were made to give a patron an idea of the composition.  In this case that would not have been necessary, so perhaps the drawing was made as a work in its own right, possibly for a member of the painter's family.

1. London, Christie's, 7 July 1981, lot 49, reproduced.  Salerno mistakenly gives the sale location as Sotheby's
2. See L. Salerno, I Dipinti del Guercino, Rome 1988, p. 362-3, no. 294, reproduced
3. London, Christie's, 12 December 1985, lot  254, reproduced