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Lot Essay
Saint Thomas the Apostle depicted as a carpenter or architect with a set-square in his hands. More often the saint is portrayed as the doubting apostle putting his finger in Christ’s wound after the Resurrection. Here Guercino chose the less common iconography, based on partly unreliable accounts of the saint’s missionary activities. According to the sources, Thomas reluctantly travelled to Persia and South India to preach the Gospel and build churches. Guercino depicted Saint Thomas in several of his paintings, yet never as a carpenter (N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino, Rome, 2017, nos. 103 I and 103 II, ill., and no. 189, ill.).
For its subject matter, horizontal format, and technique the sheet can be compared to other similar drawings by Guercino, depicting saints in close-up, with minimal attributes, as if they were portraits. Very close examples are the Four Evangelists in the Goldman Collection, Chicago, each about the same size of the present sheet (J. Goldman and N. Schwed, Strokes of genius. Italian Drawings from the Goldman Collection, Chicago, 2014, nos. 47-50, ill.). These drawings, like Saint Thomas, were executed as independent works of art, not as preparatory studies for painted compositions.
Different in style from many of Guercino’s rapid pen and wash sketches, these drawings are executed with a meticulous, linear technique. Here Guercino does not use wash to create the figure and employs only a variety of different pen strokes: darker and thicker in the areas of deep shade (such as the eye sockets or the folds on the saint’s sleeve), drier and thinner to define his locks of hair and the beard. The artist uses the pen like an engraver his chisel, shaping the figure through a combination of hatching and fine stippling. This graphic style has been described by scholars as ‘gravure style’ (D. Stone, Guercino Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums, 1991, pp. 26-28). It is important to note that in the late 1610s Guercino began a long lasting collaboration with the printmaker Giovanni Battista Pasqualini (1595-1631), providing him with drawings for prints. It was no doubt the practice of working with a printmaker that led Guercino to develop such a clear graphic style, easy to replicate on the plate. Yet no print of Saint Thomas is known.
David Stone has suggested a date in the 1640s for this sheet (written communication to the present owners 1⁄6/2015).
For its subject matter, horizontal format, and technique the sheet can be compared to other similar drawings by Guercino, depicting saints in close-up, with minimal attributes, as if they were portraits. Very close examples are the Four Evangelists in the Goldman Collection, Chicago, each about the same size of the present sheet (J. Goldman and N. Schwed, Strokes of genius. Italian Drawings from the Goldman Collection, Chicago, 2014, nos. 47-50, ill.). These drawings, like Saint Thomas, were executed as independent works of art, not as preparatory studies for painted compositions.
Different in style from many of Guercino’s rapid pen and wash sketches, these drawings are executed with a meticulous, linear technique. Here Guercino does not use wash to create the figure and employs only a variety of different pen strokes: darker and thicker in the areas of deep shade (such as the eye sockets or the folds on the saint’s sleeve), drier and thinner to define his locks of hair and the beard. The artist uses the pen like an engraver his chisel, shaping the figure through a combination of hatching and fine stippling. This graphic style has been described by scholars as ‘gravure style’ (D. Stone, Guercino Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums, 1991, pp. 26-28). It is important to note that in the late 1610s Guercino began a long lasting collaboration with the printmaker Giovanni Battista Pasqualini (1595-1631), providing him with drawings for prints. It was no doubt the practice of working with a printmaker that led Guercino to develop such a clear graphic style, easy to replicate on the plate. Yet no print of Saint Thomas is known.
David Stone has suggested a date in the 1640s for this sheet (written communication to the present owners 1⁄6/2015).