Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)

Abigail and two servants

Details

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)
Abigail and two servants
with inscription 'originale Di Guercino da Cento'
pen and brown ink, brown wash on light brown paper
9 5/8 x 12½ in. (243 x 318 mm.)

Provenance

J. Thesmar (L. 1544a); Berlin, 14 April 1961, lot 757.
Herbert List, his mark (not in Lugt).
with Katrin Bellinger, London and Munich, 1990.

Literature

D. Mahon, I Disegni del Guercino della Collezione Mahon, Bologna, 1967, under no. 24.
D. Mahon, Il Guercino - Catalogo Critico dei Disegni, exhib. cat. Bologna, Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, 1968, p. 135.
D. Mahon and D. Ekserdjian, Guercino Drawings from the Collection of Denis Mahon and the Ashmolean Museum, exhib. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1986, p. 16.
N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British Collections, exhib. cat., London, The British Museum, 1991, p. 253.
C. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Guercino Drawings from Dutch Collections, exhib. cat., Haarlem, Teylers Museum, 1991, p. 100.

Lot Essay

Related to the figures on the right in the picture of The Offering of Abigail formerly in Bridgewater House and destroyed in 1941 (L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 161). The picture was commissioned by Cardinal Antonio Barberini and, according to the Libro de Conti, cost 508 scudi and was delivered on 8 August 1637. The picture was still with the Barberini in 1644, was given to Cardinal Mazzarin and from there passed to the Orléans Collection and to the Ellesmere Collection at Bridgewater House.
Numerous drawings are connected to the picture, all mentioned by Sir Denis Mahon in his catalogue of 1968, under nos. 138-9. They are in the Mahon Collection, at Windsor Castle, in Haarlem and in Vienna (V. Birke and J. Kertèsz, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, Vienna, 1994, II, nos. 2161 and 2364).

More from Old Master Drawings

View All