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Lot Essay
Although the technique of oiled black chalk and the subject of this fascinating life drawing are reminiscent of the Bolognese School - one especially thinks of Pietro Faccini, Ludovico Carracci, or Guido Cagnacci - its extra quality of observed realism sets it apart.
Nicholas Turner has recently proposed an attribution to Guercino, noting similarities with a sheet now in the National Gallery, Washington, which represents a grain merchant, executed in a similar technique (exhib. cat., Guercino Master Draftsman. Works from American Collections, Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum and other locations, 1991, no. 78). Mr Turner also observes that the sketch on the verso (visible with transmitted light) is close to the figure of a woman holding a baby in Guercino's Miracle of Saint Charles Borromeo, a canvas datable to very early in the artist's career, circa 1613-14 (Church of Renazzo di Cento; L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 6). A study for that figure is in the Louvre (N. Turner, 'Two drawings by Guercino for his early altarpieces at Renazzo di Cento', The Burlington Magazine, CXXX, no. 1024, July 1988, p. 532, fig. 5).
We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for his help in cataloguing this drawing.
Nicholas Turner has recently proposed an attribution to Guercino, noting similarities with a sheet now in the National Gallery, Washington, which represents a grain merchant, executed in a similar technique (exhib. cat., Guercino Master Draftsman. Works from American Collections, Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum and other locations, 1991, no. 78). Mr Turner also observes that the sketch on the verso (visible with transmitted light) is close to the figure of a woman holding a baby in Guercino's Miracle of Saint Charles Borromeo, a canvas datable to very early in the artist's career, circa 1613-14 (Church of Renazzo di Cento; L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 6). A study for that figure is in the Louvre (N. Turner, 'Two drawings by Guercino for his early altarpieces at Renazzo di Cento', The Burlington Magazine, CXXX, no. 1024, July 1988, p. 532, fig. 5).
We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for his help in cataloguing this drawing.