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Lot Essay
We are grateful to David M. Stone for the following entry.
This powerful image by Guercino of the ruler of the sea – shown as an aged but surprisingly robust man in the act of calmly spearing a large, rather terrifying fish with his gleaming trident – was, until its discovery two years ago, known to scholars only through copies. The present work, as first-hand examination by the present writer attests, is the original, autograph version of this dramatic composition. The canvas is painted with the elegant colors, clear lighting, and soft but varied brushwork characteristic of Guercino’s late style. Organized around two strong, parallel diagonals (provided by the trident’s wooden shaft and the angle of the figure’s gaze and upper left arm), the picture is particularly noteworthy for its almost impressionist technique in the rendering of the foamy white crests of the waves, done, it seems, by repeatedly daubing just the tips of a lightly loaded brush onto the canvas.
At least three copies are known (see N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino: a Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p. 476, no. 188). By far the best of these is that reproduced by Luigi Salerno [with Denis Mahon] (I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, p. 425, no. 378; oil on canvas, 133 x 112 cm), which was sold at Christie’s, London, 24 May 1963, lot 101, and is now in a private collection. As close inspection of the latter (recently cleaned) copy shows, this picture does not rival the quality of the present lot, which, to point out just one aspect, boasts an exquisite passage of mountainous landscape with an old castle to the right of the figure’s left shoulder. This area is crudely summarized in the copy illustrated by Salerno, which he and Mahon rightly suggested is a product of Guercino’s bottega. Further comparisons of this copy with the newly discovered original only serve to illuminate just how brilliantly Guercino managed the perspective and foreshortened elements (e.g., Neptune’s head, the metal prongs of the trident) in the present canvas. These areas are surprisingly off-kilter in the copy, which notably lacks the superb ultramarine and lead white sky and the pink-tinged clouds that give the autograph version such radiance, and which serve to put the body, bathed in late afternoon sunlight, into solid relief, making Neptune seem to rise out of the sea before the viewer.
Guercino’s biographer Malvasia (1678, vol. II, p. 369) mentions a Neptune under the year 1632: ‘Un Nettunno per il sig. Gio. Tartaleoni di Modona,’ but no picture representing the sea god is listed anywhere in Guercino’s account book, the Libro dei conti, which lists payments for pictures from 1629 to 1666. Perhaps the project was a gift or was subsequently cancelled (Malvasia made use of a list of commissions accepted rather than a proper list of deposits and final payments). Or possibly the subject was changed: Giovan Battista Tartaglioni, indeed, does frequently appear as a patron in the account book (see B. Ghelfi, ed. [with Sir Denis Mahon], Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629–1666, Bologna, 1997, ad indicem). It has been recently demonstrated by the present writer that some Guercino paintings listed by Malvasia were paid for in kind – such as a quantity of costly ultramarine pigment – and not in cash, thus explaining their absence from the Libro dei conti, which was uniquely a register of monies received (see my essay in D.M. Stone [with contributions by Sarah Cartwright], Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer, exhibition catalogue, New York and London, 2023, p. 14). Tartaglioni’s Nettuno, if it existed, might have been paid for by an exchange of goods. But at any event, Malvasia’s reference to a picture of this subject executed in 1632 (or, better to say, ‘ordered in 1632’) cannot serve as a document for the present work, which, as Salerno and Mahon correctly hypothesized based solely on the style of the workshop copy, must come from after 1640.
The original fits comfortably with paintings done around 1645–48. For example, the head of Neptune closely matches the physiognomy of the balding, bearded Padre Eterno in the famous soppraquadro now in the Bologna Pinacoteca (fig. 1), a documented work of 1646 (see D.M. Stone, Guercino. Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1991, pp. 227-8, no. 217). It is worth noting that despite the obvious similarities, Guercino gave Neptune a rather ‘crusty’ and sea-weathered face (and body) by contrast to the creamy, rosy tones used for God the Father. Another Guercino representation of an old balding figure with a long beard is perhaps even closer to the head of the Neptune, and shares a similar downturned gaze toward the lower right: the half-length Isaiah Reading in a private collection, a documented work of 1648 for Marchese Ferdinando Cospi (see Stone 1991, p. 248, no. 238). No preparatory compositional drawings for the Neptune have thus far been identified, but Massimo Pulini has made the interesting suggestion that a quick red-chalk study of the Head of a Bearded Old Man (fig. 2; private collection, formerly, Roberto Franchi collection, Bologna, sold at Christie's, Rome, 18 June 2002, lot 650) might be related to the present painting (see Dorotheum, Vienna, Old Master Paintings I, 9 November 2022, under lot 52, p. 126, fig. 1).
The rediscovered Neptune takes its place among a number of memorable half-length pictures by Guercino featuring aging male mythological figures with heroic, powerful bodies. Two are particularly relevant here, both because of their comparable treatment and the fact they date from the later 1640s: the Atlas of 1645–46 in the Museo Bardini, Florence (Stone 1991, p. 224, no. 212); and the Enraged Hercules Wielding his Club of 1648, now in the Cremonini collection, Modena (D. M. Stone, ‘Guercino’s Hercules Enraged,’ La Seduzione della bellezza: Collezione Luigi Cremonini, D. Dotti ed., Milan, 2020, pp. 18-20, 24). These commanding figures speak the language popular during the Catholic Reform and the age of absolutist rulers. They tell of continuity, power, and a belief in the divine order of the cosmos.
DAVID M. STONE
This powerful image by Guercino of the ruler of the sea – shown as an aged but surprisingly robust man in the act of calmly spearing a large, rather terrifying fish with his gleaming trident – was, until its discovery two years ago, known to scholars only through copies. The present work, as first-hand examination by the present writer attests, is the original, autograph version of this dramatic composition. The canvas is painted with the elegant colors, clear lighting, and soft but varied brushwork characteristic of Guercino’s late style. Organized around two strong, parallel diagonals (provided by the trident’s wooden shaft and the angle of the figure’s gaze and upper left arm), the picture is particularly noteworthy for its almost impressionist technique in the rendering of the foamy white crests of the waves, done, it seems, by repeatedly daubing just the tips of a lightly loaded brush onto the canvas.
At least three copies are known (see N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino: a Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p. 476, no. 188). By far the best of these is that reproduced by Luigi Salerno [with Denis Mahon] (I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, p. 425, no. 378; oil on canvas, 133 x 112 cm), which was sold at Christie’s, London, 24 May 1963, lot 101, and is now in a private collection. As close inspection of the latter (recently cleaned) copy shows, this picture does not rival the quality of the present lot, which, to point out just one aspect, boasts an exquisite passage of mountainous landscape with an old castle to the right of the figure’s left shoulder. This area is crudely summarized in the copy illustrated by Salerno, which he and Mahon rightly suggested is a product of Guercino’s bottega. Further comparisons of this copy with the newly discovered original only serve to illuminate just how brilliantly Guercino managed the perspective and foreshortened elements (e.g., Neptune’s head, the metal prongs of the trident) in the present canvas. These areas are surprisingly off-kilter in the copy, which notably lacks the superb ultramarine and lead white sky and the pink-tinged clouds that give the autograph version such radiance, and which serve to put the body, bathed in late afternoon sunlight, into solid relief, making Neptune seem to rise out of the sea before the viewer.
Guercino’s biographer Malvasia (1678, vol. II, p. 369) mentions a Neptune under the year 1632: ‘Un Nettunno per il sig. Gio. Tartaleoni di Modona,’ but no picture representing the sea god is listed anywhere in Guercino’s account book, the Libro dei conti, which lists payments for pictures from 1629 to 1666. Perhaps the project was a gift or was subsequently cancelled (Malvasia made use of a list of commissions accepted rather than a proper list of deposits and final payments). Or possibly the subject was changed: Giovan Battista Tartaglioni, indeed, does frequently appear as a patron in the account book (see B. Ghelfi, ed. [with Sir Denis Mahon], Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629–1666, Bologna, 1997, ad indicem). It has been recently demonstrated by the present writer that some Guercino paintings listed by Malvasia were paid for in kind – such as a quantity of costly ultramarine pigment – and not in cash, thus explaining their absence from the Libro dei conti, which was uniquely a register of monies received (see my essay in D.M. Stone [with contributions by Sarah Cartwright], Guercino’s Friar with a Gold Earring: Fra Bonaventura Bisi, Painter and Art Dealer, exhibition catalogue, New York and London, 2023, p. 14). Tartaglioni’s Nettuno, if it existed, might have been paid for by an exchange of goods. But at any event, Malvasia’s reference to a picture of this subject executed in 1632 (or, better to say, ‘ordered in 1632’) cannot serve as a document for the present work, which, as Salerno and Mahon correctly hypothesized based solely on the style of the workshop copy, must come from after 1640.
The original fits comfortably with paintings done around 1645–48. For example, the head of Neptune closely matches the physiognomy of the balding, bearded Padre Eterno in the famous soppraquadro now in the Bologna Pinacoteca (fig. 1), a documented work of 1646 (see D.M. Stone, Guercino. Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1991, pp. 227-8, no. 217). It is worth noting that despite the obvious similarities, Guercino gave Neptune a rather ‘crusty’ and sea-weathered face (and body) by contrast to the creamy, rosy tones used for God the Father. Another Guercino representation of an old balding figure with a long beard is perhaps even closer to the head of the Neptune, and shares a similar downturned gaze toward the lower right: the half-length Isaiah Reading in a private collection, a documented work of 1648 for Marchese Ferdinando Cospi (see Stone 1991, p. 248, no. 238). No preparatory compositional drawings for the Neptune have thus far been identified, but Massimo Pulini has made the interesting suggestion that a quick red-chalk study of the Head of a Bearded Old Man (fig. 2; private collection, formerly, Roberto Franchi collection, Bologna, sold at Christie's, Rome, 18 June 2002, lot 650) might be related to the present painting (see Dorotheum, Vienna, Old Master Paintings I, 9 November 2022, under lot 52, p. 126, fig. 1).
The rediscovered Neptune takes its place among a number of memorable half-length pictures by Guercino featuring aging male mythological figures with heroic, powerful bodies. Two are particularly relevant here, both because of their comparable treatment and the fact they date from the later 1640s: the Atlas of 1645–46 in the Museo Bardini, Florence (Stone 1991, p. 224, no. 212); and the Enraged Hercules Wielding his Club of 1648, now in the Cremonini collection, Modena (D. M. Stone, ‘Guercino’s Hercules Enraged,’ La Seduzione della bellezza: Collezione Luigi Cremonini, D. Dotti ed., Milan, 2020, pp. 18-20, 24). These commanding figures speak the language popular during the Catholic Reform and the age of absolutist rulers. They tell of continuity, power, and a belief in the divine order of the cosmos.
DAVID M. STONE