Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

Laid down on an old backing. Part of the mount decoration with ink lines is still visible at the bottom. The upper edge has been cut to an arched shape. Slight foxing visible to the left and a very little at the right margin. A loss at the lower centre. Ink in few places sunk but no losses are visible. Overall, the ink quite fresh.
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We are indebted to Nicholas Turner who, having seen the drawing in the original, has given the following information.  He suggests on stylistic grounds a dating in the mid to late 1640s, and points to comparisons with a number of Guercino's preparatory drawings for two of his important altarpieces of the second half of the 1640s: All Saints in Glory, painted in 1645-47 for the church of the Sacre Stimmate, Modena, now in the the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse and S. Filippo Neri in Ecstasy, Supported by Two Angels, executed in 1646-47 for Santa Maria di Galliera, Bologna.¹ It seems that although Guercino at that time had received commissions for paintings of half length figures, for instance the St. Jerome commissioned by Girolamo Panessi,² now untraced, no work is known to which this drawing could be connected. 

1. See Denis Mahon, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino, 1591-1666, Disegni, exhib. cat., Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, 1991, pp. 204-208, nos. 129-133, reproduced
2. B. Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino, Bologna 1997, p. 140, no. 397