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Lot Essay
This previously unknown canvas by Guercino depicts the Blessed Andrea Dotti of Sansepolcro (c. 1250-1315), a follower of Saint Philip Benizi and one of the founders of the Servite Order at Borgo Sansepolcro. The friar is shown tonsured and bearded, in the black habit of his order, reading a sacred text and holding a humble wooden cross.
The saint is identified by the Latin inscription painted in pinkish capitals on the stone block at lower left: 'B. ANDREAS BAL / DVCCIUS A BVRGO / S. SEPVLCRI OBIIT / ANNO MCCCXV'. The honorific 'Beato', the toponym 'Borgo Sansepolcro', and the death date of 1315 together point unambiguously to the Blessed Andrea Dotti, who died on 31 August of that year at the Eremo della Barucola, the mountain hermitage above the town to which he often retreated for silent prayer. The surname 'Balduccius', however, belongs not to Dotti but to his close associate Fra Andrea Balducci (Andrea di Balduccio Marescotti), seventh Priore Generale of the Servite Order, who died in Viterbo in 1314 and was never beatified. The two friars, who shared the baptismal name Andrea, were for centuries conflated in the documentary record, and the inscription is best understood as a reflection of that very confusion. Dotti's first printed vita did not appear until 1567 and his cult was formally approved by Pope Pius VII on 29 November 1806 (M. Poccianti, Chronicon rerum totius sacri Ordinis Servorum Beatae Mariae Virginis, Florence, 1567, pp. 54, 62ff, 115-118; for a more substantial treatment, see A. Czortek, '"Eremi Cultor, Burgensiumque Splendor": Il Beato Andrea da Sansepolcro', Studi Storici dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, LXIV-LXV, II, 2014-2015, pp. 471-525, and, more recently, A. Czortek, Dal Tevere al Bidente. Studi sulla Diocesi di Sansepolcro, Selci-Lama, 2022, pp. 387ff).
The canvas is characteristic of Guercino's later style, with its fluent handling, delicate facial type, and clear, marine-blue sky. David Stone, who has seen the painting at first hand, dates it to circa 1635-40, comparing it to the Saint Joseph and the Christ Child of 1637-38 in Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland (inv. no. NGI.192; see D. Stone, Guercino: catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1991, p. 171, no. 152). The attribution to Guercino had earlier been endorsed by Carlo Volpe in an unpublished expertise of 7 June 1975 (Fototeca Zeri, inv. F 2646), where he proposed a dating of circa 1650. The composition proved popular: workshop derivations adapt the figure for other holy subjects, including paintings of Fra Corradino Ariosti (Fototeca Zeri, inv. no. 115640) and San Domenico (Fototeca Zeri, inv. no. 115832), but the quality of the present canvas — particularly in the warm, freely brushed head — sets it firmly apart from these workshop variants. The present painting is not recorded in Malvasia's Vita of 1678 or in Guercino's Libro dei conti (account book), although, as Stone notes, the latter does not include paintings Guercino executed in exchange for goods or produced as gifts.
This note is based on an unpublished entry by David M. Stone (16 February 2025; available upon request).
The saint is identified by the Latin inscription painted in pinkish capitals on the stone block at lower left: 'B. ANDREAS BAL / DVCCIUS A BVRGO / S. SEPVLCRI OBIIT / ANNO MCCCXV'. The honorific 'Beato', the toponym 'Borgo Sansepolcro', and the death date of 1315 together point unambiguously to the Blessed Andrea Dotti, who died on 31 August of that year at the Eremo della Barucola, the mountain hermitage above the town to which he often retreated for silent prayer. The surname 'Balduccius', however, belongs not to Dotti but to his close associate Fra Andrea Balducci (Andrea di Balduccio Marescotti), seventh Priore Generale of the Servite Order, who died in Viterbo in 1314 and was never beatified. The two friars, who shared the baptismal name Andrea, were for centuries conflated in the documentary record, and the inscription is best understood as a reflection of that very confusion. Dotti's first printed vita did not appear until 1567 and his cult was formally approved by Pope Pius VII on 29 November 1806 (M. Poccianti, Chronicon rerum totius sacri Ordinis Servorum Beatae Mariae Virginis, Florence, 1567, pp. 54, 62ff, 115-118; for a more substantial treatment, see A. Czortek, '"Eremi Cultor, Burgensiumque Splendor": Il Beato Andrea da Sansepolcro', Studi Storici dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, LXIV-LXV, II, 2014-2015, pp. 471-525, and, more recently, A. Czortek, Dal Tevere al Bidente. Studi sulla Diocesi di Sansepolcro, Selci-Lama, 2022, pp. 387ff).
The canvas is characteristic of Guercino's later style, with its fluent handling, delicate facial type, and clear, marine-blue sky. David Stone, who has seen the painting at first hand, dates it to circa 1635-40, comparing it to the Saint Joseph and the Christ Child of 1637-38 in Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland (inv. no. NGI.192; see D. Stone, Guercino: catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence, 1991, p. 171, no. 152). The attribution to Guercino had earlier been endorsed by Carlo Volpe in an unpublished expertise of 7 June 1975 (Fototeca Zeri, inv. F 2646), where he proposed a dating of circa 1650. The composition proved popular: workshop derivations adapt the figure for other holy subjects, including paintings of Fra Corradino Ariosti (Fototeca Zeri, inv. no. 115640) and San Domenico (Fototeca Zeri, inv. no. 115832), but the quality of the present canvas — particularly in the warm, freely brushed head — sets it firmly apart from these workshop variants. The present painting is not recorded in Malvasia's Vita of 1678 or in Guercino's Libro dei conti (account book), although, as Stone notes, the latter does not include paintings Guercino executed in exchange for goods or produced as gifts.
This note is based on an unpublished entry by David M. Stone (16 February 2025; available upon request).