Circle of Guido Reni

Thomas Jenkins (circa 1722-1798), Rome;

From whom acquired by Henry Blundell (1724-1810), Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, 1777 (as Reni);

Thence by descent to his son, Charles Robert Blundell (1761-1837), Ince Bundell Hall, Lancashire;

Thence by inheritance to his cousin, Thomas Weld-Blundell (1808-1887), Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire;

Thence by descent to his son, Charles Joseph Weld-Blundell (1844-1927), Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire;

Thence by descent (as a life interest) to his daughters, Mary Teresa Weld-Blundell (1883-1957) and Alice Mary Weld-Blendell (1907-1947), Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire;

Thence by inheritance to Mary Teresa's cousin, Colonel Sir Joseph William Weld (1909-1992), Lulworth Castle, Dorset (inv. no. 10);

Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 18 December 1980, lot 140 (as Studio of Reni);

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie’s, 17 October 2006, lot 225 (as Circle of Reni);

Where acquired by the present collectors.

H. Blundell, An Account of the Statues, Busts, Bas-Relieves, Cinerary Urns, and Other Ancient Marbles, and Paintings, at Ince, Liverpool 1803, p. 257, cat. no. 177;

Pictures from Ince Blundell Hall, exhibition catalogue, Liverpool 1960, p. 12, cat. no. 29;

G. Teasdill, An Exhibition of a Selection of Paintings from the Lulworth Castle Gallery, exhibition catalogue, Bournemouth 1967, n.p., cat. no. 80.

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Pictures from Ince Blundell Hall, 3 – 31 April 1960, no. 29 (as Attributed to Guido Reni, a fragment);

Dorset, Lulworth Castle Art Gallery, 1961, no. 10 (as Attributed to Guido Reni, a fragment);

Bournemouth, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, An Exhibition of a Selection of Paintings from the Lulworth Castle Gallery, 10 May – 3 July 1967, no. 80 (as Attributed to Guido Reni, a fragment).

This painting is a variation on the Angel Gabriel in Guido Reni's Annunciation (Ascoli Piceno, Pinacoteca Civica), circa 1628. Members of Reni's workshop as well as his contemporaries frequently produced (and reproduced) such excerpted images, most often of half-length figures or heads, as in the present work.¹ As a devotional image, this type of painting invites the viewer to imagine the rest of the narrative: the elegantly-attired angel gestures toward the Madonna, who receives the news that she will conceive and bear the Christ Child.

The connoisseur and patron Henry Blundell acquired the present work in Rome in 1777 and it remained in the family well into the twentieth century.

¹ One such version that is particularly close to the present work is the Angel of the Annunciation (58.5 by 46.5 cm) at the Niedersächisches Landesmuseum für Kunstgeschichte (inv. no. LMO 15.591).