Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

Henry Scipio Reitlinger (L.2274a, on the mount),
his sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1953, lot 59 (Guercino, Andromeda, red chalk; and another);
Dennis Ward, 1954 (from a pencil inscription on the paper backing: A mon cher ami Emmanuel des Collections Henry Scipio Reitlinger / et Dennis J? Ward)

Laid down . Small darker discolouration around the edges due to the glue . A water stain has created a darker line going through from the left edge towards the head of the sea monster on the left corner. A tear on the right edge and a few abrasions to the surface and a few tiny holes at the top and left edges . A few tiny grey small stains near the breast of the Andromeda. Overall the drawing is in good condition the red chalk is fresh.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for providing the following information on this newly discovered Guercino, a rare study of a female nude, executed in red chalk, dating from the artist's mature period.

This is an impressive and finished preparatory study, with many differences, for the left-hand side of Guercino's large, horizontal canvas of the Freeing of Andromeda, painted in 1648 and now in the possession of the Doria-Balbi family, in the Palazzo Balbi Senàrega, Genoa (fig.1).  As Turner notes, it is an early idea for the composition and the handling is entirely characteristic, and comparable in style with other chalk studies Guercino made at about this time.¹ Turner observes, in a letter to the present owner: 'The lightness of touch throughout gives luminosity to the design and there is a typical Guercino pentiment in the left shoulder of Andromeda, where the form in highlight has been slightly reduced by extra shading in the rock surface behind.'  Another pentimento is visible on the fingers of Andromeda's outstreched left hand. 

Four other drawings have been related to the painting, of which the most relevant from the point of view of the present study is the Andromeda, formerly in the Suida-Manning collection and now in the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas.²  Turner has suggested that the Suida-Manning sheet, also meticulously executed although in pen and brown ink, represents an earlier stage in Guercino's thinking.  There Andromeda is chained to the rock by her left wrist rather than by her left foot, she looks upwards and raises both arms above her head, presumably at the sight of Perseus descending towards her, but neither Perseus nor the seamonster is included.  The other drawings which have been associated with the same commission are in the Brera, Milan, and the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, while a third one was in the Boussac sale in Paris in 1926 and is now lost.³ 

Malvasia records that the commission was carried out for the Commendatore Giovanni Battista Manzini in 1648.⁴  Manzini was a friend of Guercino and had acquired a number of paintings from him as well as securing him some other commissions.  It appears from the Libro dei Conti  that, exceptionally, Guercino allowed Manzini to pay for the Freeing of Andromeda with various goods and not with cash:' Per il Quadro dell'Andromeda fatta al Sig.re Comendat / tore Manzini, si è riceuto / Castelate il Spechio, et altro'.⁵  Turner writes that, in spite of the differences between them, this study and the finished painting 'are much the same in spirit ' and 'share a number of significant details.'  To mention a few: the chain securing Andromeda's ankle to the rock, her left hand outstretched in a similar movement against the sky, and the large drapery covering the middle of her body.  Guercino is recorded as having painted another version of this subject in 1660, but unfortunately it has not survived.

1. Turner makes a comparison with Guercino's Study for Erminia, three-quarter length, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, inv. no. 2007.111.101; see Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1525-1835, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 2011, pp. 72-73, no. 29, reproduced

2. J. Bober, I grandi disegni italiani del Blanton Museum of Art dell'Università del Texas, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan) 2001, no. 39, reproduced

3. See respectively: A. Emiliani, Mostra di disegni del seicento emiliano nella Pinacoteca di Brera, exhib. cat., Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, 1959, no. 77, reproduced; C.Thiem, Italianische Zeichnungen, Stuttgart 1977, p. 115, no. 233, reproduced; D. Stone, Guercino, Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Mass., et.al., 1991, p. 123, note 4

4. C. C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, 1678, II, p. 267

5. B. Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666, Bologna 1997, p. 139, no. 393