Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called il Guercino, (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)
Lucretia
Lucretia
oil on canvas
110.6 x 89.8cm (43 9/16 x 35 3/8in).
Provenance
Thought to have been commissioned in 1638 by Cardinal Ciriaco Rocci (1581 - 25 September 1651), for which Guercino received the equivalent of 44 scudi on 18th August that year (see: Ghelfi, Libro dei Conti, Venice 1997, p. 93 n. 177)
With Trafalgar Galleries, London, 2000 (as Guercino)
Sale, Bonham's, London, 4 July 2007, lot 47 (as Attributed to Guercino)
Exhibited
Cento, Pinacoteca Civica, Guercino e Lucretia, 12 September 2009 - 1 November 2009; and subsequently on long-term loan until 6 June 2012
Vercelli, Museo Borgogna, September 2012- July 2013
London, The Foundling Museum, Lucretia and Handel, 17 September 2013 - 26 January 2014
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Guercino, 2015, cat. no. 29
Barnard Castle, County Durham, The Power and the Virtue: Death of Lucretia, 25 October 2019 - 20 January 2020
Literature
C.C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi, Bologna, 1678, vol. II, p. 371 (1841 edition, II, p. 264)
B. Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666, Venice, 1997, pp. 93 no.177.
N. Turner, Guercino e Lucrezia, exh. cat., Cento, 2009
Lucretia: Guercino and Handel - a dialogue between Art and Music - The Foundling Museum, London, 2013, exh. cat., pp. 15-19, fig. 1, ill.
Guercino, Tokyo, 2015, exh. cat., pp.76-77
N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p. 533, cat. no. 244, ill
Drawings
See: N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p.533
Since last offered in these rooms in 2007, the present composition by Guercino has been extensively published and exhibited, most notably in Tokyo at the National Museum of Western Art (2015) and most recently at the Bowes Museum County Durham (25 October 2019 - 20 January 2020); having previously been on long term loan at Cento, where it was exhibited in 2009, the exhibition catalogue for which was contributed to by Alec Cobbe, Fausto Gozzi, Denis Mahon and Nicholas Turner, all of whom endorsed the attribution to Guercino. We are further grateful to Professor David Stone for informing us that, on the basis of photographs, he supports the attribution to Guercino without hesitation but wonders if the picture might be a few years earlier than 1638, as has been suggested.
In the period of Guercino's Account Book, from 1629 until his death in 1666, the artist painted six different half-lengths of the present subject. Only two of these were carried out in the 1630s, the decade which Nicholas Turner has suggested is indicated by the style of this painting. By coincidence, both were made in 1638: one was for a Cardinale Rocci (paid for 18 August) and the other for a Signor Benaduccio (paid for on 6 October), which must have been carried out barely a month or two later.
1638 marks the end of Guercino's middle period, during the last few years of his activity in Cento and shortly before he transferred for good to Bologna. The refined air of Guercino's compositions of the 1630s, both large and small, can be contrasted to the coarser and more ordinary expressions of the figures in Guercino's earlier paintings. The emergence of a classical tendency in the work of his mid-career is best explained by the influence of his arch-rival, the Bolognese painter Guido Reni (1575-1642). In 1642, Guercino had already moved to Bologna just weeks before Reni died in order to avoid the War of Castro then being fought in the countryside around Cento. He was therefore well place to assume forthwith the role of the city's leading painter.
When conceiving the present composition, Guercino may well have had a half-length Lucretia by Reni in mind, which the latter had painted some years earlier (how many years before is a matter of debate between specialists). The prime version of this composition had formerly belonged to the Altieri family of Rome — a picture known in several versions. Reni's treatment of the subject must have been familiar to Guercino since in both works Lucretia's pose is similar. In their mood, however, the two canvases are noticeably different. Guercino's Lucretia, seen in a sombre setting and dressed in mellow-coloured costume, has been seen as exerting superhuman self-control in her moment of supreme crisis. Reni's by comparison has been observed as distraught and her agitation reflected in the tension of her face and body and in the zigzagging folds of her crimson drapery. This different approach to the same subject between two rival painters highlights their contrasting personalities: Reni having been seen as nervous, if not highly-strung; Guercino's as significantly more relaxed and instinctive. That one composition did affect the outcome of the other is revealed by an apparently insignificant detail common to both works — Lucretia's crooked thumb as she pulls back the drapery at her breast with her left hand. The artist's magical control of richly textured paint is well seen in Lucretia's hand holding the dagger, as well as in her right sleeve, where a pentiment for her white cuff shows through the purple-coloured material above it.
Two drawings depicting Lucretia of similar compositions whose attributions are on the border between Guercino and Guercino's School are in the Art Museum, Princeton University (Fig. 1), and in the Fine Arts Museum, Budapest, respectively. Whatever their authorship, the figure's pose is even closer to the figure in Reni's painting than the young woman in the present canvas. This is shown in the drawn figures by such details as Lucretia's exposed right breast, the angle of her head and the placement of her left hand. Neither drawing gives the impression of being a working study, but whatever their purpose they underscore Reni's influence on Guercino's design.
Throughout his early activity in Cento, Guercino was strongly influenced by the paintings of the great sixteenth-century Venetian master, Titian (circa 1488/1490-1576) and this is seen in his liking for earth colours, as well as in the loose application of his materials. Titian's Judith with the Head of Holofernes, dateable to circa 1550, in the Detroit Art Institute, in which browns and reds are dominated by whites in thick impasto, is the sort of painting by the Venetian master that Guercino would have admired. This is especially evident in the left side of Lucretia's face and in her hair, passages that show Guercino's beautifully textured application of pinks, creamy whites and browns so reminiscent of Titian. Guercino's love of Titianesque handling and colour diminished, however, as he responded more and more to the influence of Reni's smoother handling and lighter, more pastel hues.
It has further been suggested that in Guercino's representation, Lucretia's passive acceptance of her fate seems to derive from the dignified but sorrowful demeanour of the Magdalen in Titian's Mary Magdalene in the Desert, painted around 1565, the finest version of which is in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg. Guercino would have known a variant of Titian's composition, in reverse, from the engraving after it by Cornelis Cort (Fig. 2), published in 1566, where both the saint's psychology and the angle of her body in the compositional space seem close to Guercino's Lucretia.
If Nicholas Tunrer is correct in his dating of the present work six entries in Guercino's libro dei conti can establish precisely when, by whom, for presentation to whom and at what cost this work was executed. Two were carried out in 1638, one of which was for Cardinale Rocci (1581-1651). Ciriaco Rocci (1581 - 25 September 1651) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal and papal nunzio to Switzerland, Austria and Cologne. He was born in 1581 in Rome and studied literature before entering the service of the church. In 1628 he was appointed Latin Archbishop of Patras and later that year he was sent to Switzerland by Pope Urban VIII as an apostolic nunzio. In 1629 he returned to Rome and was elevated to cardinal. That same year, Rocci came into possession of one part of the Villa Muti which had been divided upon the death of his uncle Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni. He participated in the Papal conclave of 1644 and between 1646 and 1647 he was appointed Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals.
Like many pictures which left other great Roman princely collections Lucretia is likely to have come to England as a result of the French occupation of Rome in 1808. The situation remained unchanged until after Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in 1813 - an event followed by the Austrian recovery of much of Italy and a subsequent seal of approval at the congress of Vienna.
As related in the legendary history of ancient Rome, Lucretia was the virtuous wife of a Roman nobleman and a fair, yet pious woman. Sextus, who was the son of Tarquin the Proud, came to her when she was alone in her chamber, threatening to kill her if she did not submit to him. Rather than endure the shame of her rape, Lucretia committed suicide, by stabbing herself. In Guercino's picture she turns her eyes heavenwards and, with utter composure plunges the dagger clean into her chest.
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Lucretia
Lucretia
oil on canvas
110.6 x 89.8cm (43 9/16 x 35 3/8in).
Provenance
Thought to have been commissioned in 1638 by Cardinal Ciriaco Rocci (1581 - 25 September 1651), for which Guercino received the equivalent of 44 scudi on 18th August that year (see: Ghelfi, Libro dei Conti, Venice 1997, p. 93 n. 177)
With Trafalgar Galleries, London, 2000 (as Guercino)
Sale, Bonham's, London, 4 July 2007, lot 47 (as Attributed to Guercino)
Exhibited
Cento, Pinacoteca Civica, Guercino e Lucretia, 12 September 2009 - 1 November 2009; and subsequently on long-term loan until 6 June 2012
Vercelli, Museo Borgogna, September 2012- July 2013
London, The Foundling Museum, Lucretia and Handel, 17 September 2013 - 26 January 2014
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Guercino, 2015, cat. no. 29
Barnard Castle, County Durham, The Power and the Virtue: Death of Lucretia, 25 October 2019 - 20 January 2020
Literature
C.C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi, Bologna, 1678, vol. II, p. 371 (1841 edition, II, p. 264)
B. Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666, Venice, 1997, pp. 93 no.177.
N. Turner, Guercino e Lucrezia, exh. cat., Cento, 2009
Lucretia: Guercino and Handel - a dialogue between Art and Music - The Foundling Museum, London, 2013, exh. cat., pp. 15-19, fig. 1, ill.
Guercino, Tokyo, 2015, exh. cat., pp.76-77
N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p. 533, cat. no. 244, ill
Drawings
See: N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p.533
Since last offered in these rooms in 2007, the present composition by Guercino has been extensively published and exhibited, most notably in Tokyo at the National Museum of Western Art (2015) and most recently at the Bowes Museum County Durham (25 October 2019 - 20 January 2020); having previously been on long term loan at Cento, where it was exhibited in 2009, the exhibition catalogue for which was contributed to by Alec Cobbe, Fausto Gozzi, Denis Mahon and Nicholas Turner, all of whom endorsed the attribution to Guercino. We are further grateful to Professor David Stone for informing us that, on the basis of photographs, he supports the attribution to Guercino without hesitation but wonders if the picture might be a few years earlier than 1638, as has been suggested.
In the period of Guercino's Account Book, from 1629 until his death in 1666, the artist painted six different half-lengths of the present subject. Only two of these were carried out in the 1630s, the decade which Nicholas Turner has suggested is indicated by the style of this painting. By coincidence, both were made in 1638: one was for a Cardinale Rocci (paid for 18 August) and the other for a Signor Benaduccio (paid for on 6 October), which must have been carried out barely a month or two later.
1638 marks the end of Guercino's middle period, during the last few years of his activity in Cento and shortly before he transferred for good to Bologna. The refined air of Guercino's compositions of the 1630s, both large and small, can be contrasted to the coarser and more ordinary expressions of the figures in Guercino's earlier paintings. The emergence of a classical tendency in the work of his mid-career is best explained by the influence of his arch-rival, the Bolognese painter Guido Reni (1575-1642). In 1642, Guercino had already moved to Bologna just weeks before Reni died in order to avoid the War of Castro then being fought in the countryside around Cento. He was therefore well place to assume forthwith the role of the city's leading painter.
When conceiving the present composition, Guercino may well have had a half-length Lucretia by Reni in mind, which the latter had painted some years earlier (how many years before is a matter of debate between specialists). The prime version of this composition had formerly belonged to the Altieri family of Rome — a picture known in several versions. Reni's treatment of the subject must have been familiar to Guercino since in both works Lucretia's pose is similar. In their mood, however, the two canvases are noticeably different. Guercino's Lucretia, seen in a sombre setting and dressed in mellow-coloured costume, has been seen as exerting superhuman self-control in her moment of supreme crisis. Reni's by comparison has been observed as distraught and her agitation reflected in the tension of her face and body and in the zigzagging folds of her crimson drapery. This different approach to the same subject between two rival painters highlights their contrasting personalities: Reni having been seen as nervous, if not highly-strung; Guercino's as significantly more relaxed and instinctive. That one composition did affect the outcome of the other is revealed by an apparently insignificant detail common to both works — Lucretia's crooked thumb as she pulls back the drapery at her breast with her left hand. The artist's magical control of richly textured paint is well seen in Lucretia's hand holding the dagger, as well as in her right sleeve, where a pentiment for her white cuff shows through the purple-coloured material above it.
Two drawings depicting Lucretia of similar compositions whose attributions are on the border between Guercino and Guercino's School are in the Art Museum, Princeton University (Fig. 1), and in the Fine Arts Museum, Budapest, respectively. Whatever their authorship, the figure's pose is even closer to the figure in Reni's painting than the young woman in the present canvas. This is shown in the drawn figures by such details as Lucretia's exposed right breast, the angle of her head and the placement of her left hand. Neither drawing gives the impression of being a working study, but whatever their purpose they underscore Reni's influence on Guercino's design.
Throughout his early activity in Cento, Guercino was strongly influenced by the paintings of the great sixteenth-century Venetian master, Titian (circa 1488/1490-1576) and this is seen in his liking for earth colours, as well as in the loose application of his materials. Titian's Judith with the Head of Holofernes, dateable to circa 1550, in the Detroit Art Institute, in which browns and reds are dominated by whites in thick impasto, is the sort of painting by the Venetian master that Guercino would have admired. This is especially evident in the left side of Lucretia's face and in her hair, passages that show Guercino's beautifully textured application of pinks, creamy whites and browns so reminiscent of Titian. Guercino's love of Titianesque handling and colour diminished, however, as he responded more and more to the influence of Reni's smoother handling and lighter, more pastel hues.
It has further been suggested that in Guercino's representation, Lucretia's passive acceptance of her fate seems to derive from the dignified but sorrowful demeanour of the Magdalen in Titian's Mary Magdalene in the Desert, painted around 1565, the finest version of which is in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg. Guercino would have known a variant of Titian's composition, in reverse, from the engraving after it by Cornelis Cort (Fig. 2), published in 1566, where both the saint's psychology and the angle of her body in the compositional space seem close to Guercino's Lucretia.
If Nicholas Tunrer is correct in his dating of the present work six entries in Guercino's libro dei conti can establish precisely when, by whom, for presentation to whom and at what cost this work was executed. Two were carried out in 1638, one of which was for Cardinale Rocci (1581-1651). Ciriaco Rocci (1581 - 25 September 1651) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal and papal nunzio to Switzerland, Austria and Cologne. He was born in 1581 in Rome and studied literature before entering the service of the church. In 1628 he was appointed Latin Archbishop of Patras and later that year he was sent to Switzerland by Pope Urban VIII as an apostolic nunzio. In 1629 he returned to Rome and was elevated to cardinal. That same year, Rocci came into possession of one part of the Villa Muti which had been divided upon the death of his uncle Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni. He participated in the Papal conclave of 1644 and between 1646 and 1647 he was appointed Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals.
Like many pictures which left other great Roman princely collections Lucretia is likely to have come to England as a result of the French occupation of Rome in 1808. The situation remained unchanged until after Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in 1813 - an event followed by the Austrian recovery of much of Italy and a subsequent seal of approval at the congress of Vienna.
As related in the legendary history of ancient Rome, Lucretia was the virtuous wife of a Roman nobleman and a fair, yet pious woman. Sextus, who was the son of Tarquin the Proud, came to her when she was alone in her chamber, threatening to kill her if she did not submit to him. Rather than endure the shame of her rape, Lucretia committed suicide, by stabbing herself. In Guercino's picture she turns her eyes heavenwards and, with utter composure plunges the dagger clean into her chest.
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