Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called il Guercino

(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine(?), Saint Francis and Saint Louis of France,
oil on copper, 43 x 36 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
N. Turner, The paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, p. 305, no. 46;
D. Benati, Purché vi sia il naturale dentro ogn’uno e’ padrone della sua meniera, in: D. Benati (ed.), Guercino tra Sacro e Profano, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2017, pp. 35-36, fig. 9

This is one of the earliest known paintings on copper by Guercino. It has been dated to circa 1616-1617, and appears to have been executed just a little later than the Madonna della Pappa which is also on copper (see N. Turner, The paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, pp. 272-273, no. 15. I-IV).

The present painting appears to be a preparatory study, or modello, for a monumental altarpiece which is either lost, or as yet untraced. Seated on a high throne, surmounted by a baldacchino reminiscent of the Sacre conversazioni of the Ferrara school of painting, is the Madonna who holds the naked Christ Child on her knee. Two saints kneel in the foreground, one on the left is a Nun who may be Saint Catherine, while on the right is Saint Francis, wearing his typical habit. Standing beyond him in the middle-ground is Saint Louis of France recognizable by his crown and the lilied sceptre he holds.

Knowledge of a preparatory drawing for this composition is significant; already identified in the 1970s (see: F. Russell, ‘A Guercino Footnote’, in Master Drawings, 11, no. 3, 1973, p. 271 and p. 352, pl. 27) this sheet, with its rapid and impulsive touch, reveals some interesting pentimenti: these for example are visible in the arm of Saint Louis which is different compared to the painting on copper. As of note is how in the drawing the Madonna is represented on a lower podium, allowing her to lean forward to place a flower in the hand of Saint Francis, a gesture later eliminated from the painting here under discussion.

The figure of Saint Louis is quite unusual in the iconography of seventeenth century Italian art, yet he appears in another early work by Guercino, the altarpiece, which is datable to 1616, representing The Virgin and Child, with Saint Joseph, Saint Augustine, Saint Louis, Saint Francis and a young donor, formerly in the church of Sant’Agostino at Cento, and now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. The intense dynamism, modulated by striking effects of chiaroscuro, which animates the figures, can be found in nascent form in the present study, which is evolved from the study of the gestures and expression of emotion in paintings by the Carracci. Indeed, of particular importance to Guercino’s early development was the example of Ludovico Carracci, who in 1591 executed for Guercino’s native city, the altarpiece with the Holy Family with Saint Francis for the church of the Cappuccini (now in the Pinacotecta Civica, Cento).

The present painting on copper represents an evolution of the tight pictorial language applied to the first altarpieces executed by Guercino, like the Madonna enthroned with Saints Francis, Anthony Abbot and Bovo from which it reiterates the compositional structure. This latter altarpiece has been considered a collaborative work, made with the assistance of Lorenzo Gennari (see literature): it was executed for the community of Renazzo di Cento for the parish church of San Sebastiano. Moreover, the painting under discussion here, with its delicate brushstrokes, is simultaneously imbued with a sense of intimacy and monumentality.