Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

Casa Gennari;
F. Forni;
Edward Bouverie (L.325);
George Salting;
Sir Bruce S. Ingram (L.1405a);
Carl Winter (bears both his marks CW and GL);
Mrs. Don Forrest,
by whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 5 December 1977, lot 11

D.M. Stone, Guercino Master Draftsman: Works from North American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Art Museums, et al., 1991, p. 225, no. 224, reproduced p. 231, pl. C, fig. 224

Laid down. Red chalk quite strong and preserved. Very light staining around the edges due to the glue. Sold mounted and framed in a modern gilded wooden frame of some age.
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This sensitive study of a putto holding a flower can be compared with Guercino’s study of A Flying Putto formerly in the collection of Dr. Carlo M. Croce.¹  Although the latter is executed in black chalk, the manner in which the chalk is applied is extremely comparable.  In both drawings Guercino has used horizontal shading lines to build up form on the arms and torso and he has created a sfumato effect by using stumping to soften the facial features and to give texture to the hair. 

In his entry for the Flying Putto, Stone describes the child as being ‘...more abstract and idealized...’ when compared with Three Studies of a Putto, a drawing for the 1648 altarpiece, Saint Margaret of Cortona (now in the Vatican).²  This description can also be applied to the present work and, as Stone suggests of the black chalk study, it may have been executed without the aid of a model.  Also stylistically comparable are two other drawings, both in red chalk, The Infant Saint John The Baptist holding a cross,³ and Two Putti looking downwards, the latter in the Royal Collection at Windsor.⁴

It is difficult to ascertain whether the present drawing was preparatory for a specific commission, especially as Guercino produced numerous studies of putti.  The inclusion of the flower might suggest that it was intended as a study for a Christ Child.  Stylistically it belongs to Guercino’s later years and given the similarities it shares with A Flying Putto, a dating of circa 1650 seems appropriate.

1.  D. M. Stone, op. cit., p. 127, no. 55, reproduced p. 128
2.  Ibid., p. 125, no. 54, reproduced p. 126
3.  Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 12 January 1990, lot 43
4.  D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino...at Windsor Castle, Cambridge 1989, p. 98, no. 223, pl. 208