Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

Claudio Argentieri (1891-1956), Rome (L.486b);

Pier Giulio Breschi (1874-1937), Rome (L.2079b);

With H. Shickman Gallery, New York;

Sale, London, Christie's, 2 December 1969, lot 65;

Sale, New York, Christie's, 23 January 2002, lot 35;

Where acquired.

Drawn in an elegant combination of pen and brown ink and wash, this drawing of a bearded man wearing a turban is a handsome example of Guercino’s distinctive and masterful graphic style.

Stylistically the drawing can be dated to the 1620s, a period of the artist’s career when his bold use of pen and wash is frequently at its energetic best. This proposed dating is further supported by the observation made by the late Guercino scholar, Sir Denis Mahon, prior to the present work being acquired by the Youngers (see Provenance). Mahon proposed that the bearded figure may be connected with the picture of The Miracle of Eliseo, which was painted by Guercino for the Marchese Carlo Ruini. Though the picture is now lost the composition is known, in reverse, through an engraving of 1627 by Giovanni Battista Pasqualini (1595-1631)¹ (Fig.1), in which Eliseo and his servant Gehazi witness the resurrection of the son of the Shunammite woman. There are some fundamental differences between the Younger drawing and the figure of Eliseo in Pasqualini's print, most notably the positioning of the arm, however the facial type and turbaned head are closely comparable in both works.

1. P. Bagni, Il Guercino e i suoi incisori, Rome 1988, p. 67, no. 96, reproduced