Lot Essay
A study for the lost fresco of the same subject painted in chiaroscuro on the façade of the Palazzo Tanari in Bologna in 1618.
Two further drawings of Hercules Slaying the Hydra for this commission are in the Samuel Wengraff Jr. Collection in Chicago and in a private collection in Washington, D.M. Stone, Guercino, Master Draftsman, works from North American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Arthur M Sackler Museum, 1991, no. 5, illustrated. Related to this commission are two further drawings both showing Hercules slaying the Hydra: one is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Basel (D.M. Stone, op. cit., fig. 5a), and the other was formerly in the Alfred Normand collection, sold at Christie's, Monaco, 20 June 1994, lot 23, illustrated.
Guercino treated the same subject several times during his career, the earliest being the small fresco painted in the Casa Provenzale in his native Cento in 1614 (L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, fig. 7d), and the latest, now lost but described in Guercino's account book in 1659 in a painting for the Marchese di Marzera, the Spanish Ambassador in Venice. A drawing of horizontal format dated by Nicholas Turner to the 1640s or 1650s is in the British Museum (N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British Collections, exhib. cat., The Bristish Museum, London, 1991, no. app. 56, illustrated), and a print after Guercino of this subject, dated by Nicholas Turner to around the 1640s is the frontispiece to a volume of engravings dedicated to Marchese Montecuccoli.
Two further drawings of Hercules Slaying the Hydra for this commission are in the Samuel Wengraff Jr. Collection in Chicago and in a private collection in Washington, D.M. Stone, Guercino, Master Draftsman, works from North American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Arthur M Sackler Museum, 1991, no. 5, illustrated. Related to this commission are two further drawings both showing Hercules slaying the Hydra: one is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Basel (D.M. Stone, op. cit., fig. 5a), and the other was formerly in the Alfred Normand collection, sold at Christie's, Monaco, 20 June 1994, lot 23, illustrated.
Guercino treated the same subject several times during his career, the earliest being the small fresco painted in the Casa Provenzale in his native Cento in 1614 (L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, fig. 7d), and the latest, now lost but described in Guercino's account book in 1659 in a painting for the Marchese di Marzera, the Spanish Ambassador in Venice. A drawing of horizontal format dated by Nicholas Turner to the 1640s or 1650s is in the British Museum (N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British Collections, exhib. cat., The Bristish Museum, London, 1991, no. app. 56, illustrated), and a print after Guercino of this subject, dated by Nicholas Turner to around the 1640s is the frontispiece to a volume of engravings dedicated to Marchese Montecuccoli.