A Saint kneeling in Prayer, with other Figures kneeling in the background

Details

GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, IL GUERCINO (1591-1666)
A Saint kneeling in Prayer, with other Figures kneeling in the background
red chalk on paper, watermark fleur-de-lys
11 1⁄8 x 8 1⁄8 in. (28.2 x 20.7 cm.)

Provenance

Probably the artist's studio; then by descent to his nephews
Benedetto (1633-1715) and Cesare Gennari (1637-1688), Bologna (the ‘Casa Gennari’); sold around 1745 with other drawings by the artist, either directly or through Francesco Forni, to
John Bouverie (1723-1750), Betchworth House, Surrey, then by inheritance to his sister
Anne Bouverie, and her husband, John Hervey, London, then by descent to their son
Christopher Hervey (d. 1786), East Betchworth, Surrey, then by inheritance to his aunt
Elizabeth Bouverie (d. 1798), Barham Court, Teston, Kent.
Sir Charles Middleton, later 1st Baron Barham (1726-1813), then by descent to his stepson
Sir Gerard Noel, 2nd Baron Barham (1759-1838), then by descent to his son
Charles Noel, 3rd Baron Barham and 1st Earl of Gainsborough (1781-1866), then by descent to
Anthony Gerard Edward Noel, 5th Earl of Gainsborough (1923-2009), Exton Hall; sale, Christie’s, London, 23 November 1971, lot 103
Baskett & Day, London, by whom acquired at the above sale.
Private collection, San Francisco.
Acquired from the above.

Literature

F. J. Cummings, ‘The Assumption of the Virgin by Guercino’, in Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1972, p. 62, note 15.
D. Mahon, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri il Guercino 1591-1666. Disegni, exh. cat., Bologna, Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, 1992, p. 218, under no. 140.
D. Mahon, Guercino. Master Painter of the Baroque, exh. cat., Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1992, p. 289, under no. 49.
R. W. Bissell, A. Derstine and D. Miller, Masters of Italian Baroque Painting. The Detroit Institute of Arts, London, 2005, p. 110, under no. 34.
N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome, 2017, p. 663, under no. 373.

Exhibited

London, Baskett & Day, Exhibition of Drawings, 1972, no. 9.
Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, and Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, Guercino. Master Draftsman. Works from North American Collections, exh. cat., 1991, no. 58, ill.

Conditions of sale

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Leo Webster Specialist

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Lot Essay

When this fine drawing first appeared on the art market in 1971, Denis Mahon suggested that it was a late work by Guercino and that the figures of the apostles were probably intended for a painting of the Assumption of the Virgin. In Guercino’s account book (Libro dei Conti) a 1650 painting of The Assumption of the Virgin is recorded as made for an unknown church in Naples (B. Ghelfi, Il libro dei conti del Guercino 1629-1666, Bologna, 1997, pp. 147 and 149). The altarpiece has been recently identified by Massimo Pulini with a large painting in the church of San Francesco in the city of Aversa, some twenty kilometres north of Naples (M. Pulini and A. Sgueglia, ed., Guercino e l’Assunta di Aversa: un dipinto dimenticato dalla riscoperta al restauro, Aversa, 2020). The Aversa altarpiece includes very small figures at the badly damaged bottom of the composition, which may be tentatively identified as the apostles mourning the death of the Virgin.

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