Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called il Guercino

(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Saint Jerome,
oil on canvas, 120 x 102 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 31 January 2013, lot 244 (as attributed to Guercino with incorrect measurements)

Literature:
N. Turner, The painting of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, p. 558, no. 267

When the present picture was examined by Nicholas Turner in April 2011 he thought it to be an autograph replica by Guercino with some studio additions of a more fully executed painting of similar dimensions, which was formerly in the Ruffo della Scaletta collection, Messina and sold at the Dorotheum, Vienna 19 April 2016, lot 33.

However, Turner now considers the present work to be a full-sized sketch (see literature). Turner explains that Guercino was in the habit of preparing his pictures with full-sized sketches, painted on canvases of the same size as the finished work, such as this example. These ‘bozzettoni,’ as Sir Denis Mahon labelled them, may be distinguished from their more finished counterparts by their economy of means, including thinly diluted colours, sketchier handling and the frequent omissions of mid-tones, reinforcing the contrast in chiaroscuro.

Guercino only spent time finessing the details on the version of the picture destined for the client, rather than in the ‘bozzettoni.’ Where the ‘bozzettoni’ gain, however, is in the spontaneity of the brushwork, and in the sometimes livelier conception of the figure or figures. For example, in the present picture, this looser handling may be noticed in the bark of the tree, and in the broken branch to which the crucifix is tied with rope. This passage is more broadly painted here than its equivalent in the picture previously in the Ruffo collection and sold at Dorotheum in 2016.

In some areas of the present picture, Guercino has intentionally left the ground to show through. This acts as the mid-tone, ‘a risparmio’ that Guercino has not troubled to paint. The manipulation of the warm mid-tone provided by the ground may be seen in the saint’s beard, neck and, perhaps, most strikingly, in his wrinkled forehead. In the Ruffo picture, the softening of his rugged brow is particularly evident. A pen-and-ink drawing for the half-length figure of St Jerome is in the Fine Art Museum, Budapest (inv. no. 2478).

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for his help in cataloguing this lot.