Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

Sir Max Michaelis, Cape Town (1860-1932);
sale, London, Christie’s, 4 July 1989, lot 14 (as Attributed to Guercino);
Private Collection, Channel Islands

N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British Collections, London 1991, p. 88, not reproduced

Hinged to the mount at the upper margin. Some staining at the margins, more noticeable at the upper margin. Light scattered foxing at lower and upper margins. There are a few small circular light grey stains located on the young man's face. There is also a circular loss that has been repaired, approximately 3cm in diameter, located at the level of the Prophet's shin, just above his foot. There is also a small rectangular loss at the upper left corner. It does appear that the sheet may have been previously cleaned. However the red chalk and wash remain fresh and overall the image is still strong.
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This handsome figure study belongs to Guercino’s early oeuvre and is thought to be one of the preparatory drawings for the figure of the Prophet Zechariah in the cupola of Piacenza Cathedral (fig. 1).¹  The commission to decorate the cupola with frescoes of the prophets had first been given to the Lombard painter, Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, called Il Morazzone, in 1625.  Guercino inherited the project to complete the decorative scheme the following year, after Morrazone’s death.

There are a number of well-documented rapid pen and ink studies that relate to this important project, but there appear to be only two other known red chalk studies for the full figure of Zechariah, one in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa² and one at Windsor.³  There are two further red chalk sheets of studies for the Prophet’s drapery and feet, both in the Schloss Fachsenfeld Collection, Stuttgart.⁴  While all three studies are quite different from the final fresco (and in fact all very different from each other), our study can be more closely compared with the sketch at Genoa as both are looser and more sketch-like than the more worked up figure at Windsor.  In terms of chronology, the present work would appear to come first in the development of the figure of the prophet; it is a subtle yet delicate portrayal that appears to have been drawn from life and shows the young artist working out the basic form of the body using simplistic yet bold lines.  Here the drapery does not yet cover the lower half of the Prophet, as in the other red chalk studies, and serves to strengthen the idea that this is the earliest of the three designs. The placement and the positioning of the arms have not yet been established and are developed in the later red chalk studies.

Nicholas Turner confirmed the attribution to Guercino in a letter dated 29 November 1999.

1.  P. Bagni, Guercino a Piacenza, Gli affreschi nella cupola della Cattedrale, Bologna 1984, p.68, no. 21, reproduced p. 69
2.  Inv. no. 1118
3.  Inv. no. 2693
4.  Inv. nos. III/83 and III/81