Guido Reni

The thin copper support is flat and stable. The picture has been fairly recently cleaned and restored. The paint surface is in good overall condition, but has suffered a little from wear throughout, notably in the flesh tones, landscape and architecture. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals a number of scattered old repaired losses across the picture surface. The greatest concentrations of these are to be found to the right side of the Virgin's torso, with two losses on her robe and to the hem of her red dress, to damages to the left and to the hem of Saint Francis's robes, and to losses along the right margin, notably to the right of Saint Joseph and to the base of the pedestal on which he rests. There are further scattered losses, notably in the robe of Saint Francis, the upper corners and the foreground, but these are mostly minor in nature. There has been restoration to the flesh tones, notably the heads of Saint Francis, the Christ Child and Mary, and to the angel, upper right. Offered with a carved and gilt wood Italianate frame in good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This delicate work on copper is closely associated with a drawing in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, formerly called 'Italian, 17th century', but fully attributed to Reni by Catherine Johnston in her thesis of 1974 and accepted as such ever since.¹ The compositions differ only slightly in the position of the curtain and the two putti included in the painting, and the inclination of Saint Francis' head is not quite analogous. The conception, however, is so close that there can be no doubt that the designer of the drawing is also the author of the painting.² Both works may be dated to Reni's youthful period in Bologna in the 1590s when he was working under the influence of his teacher, the Flemish painter, Denys Calvaert.

A painting of the same composition is documented as in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, Genoa (inv. no. 35). Listed as '17th century' in that inventory, the Spinola painting is not accepted as autograph by either Johnston or Richard Spear.³ Johnston notes several differences between the present painting and that in Genoa, which strays further from the drawing, namely in the attitudes of the figures and the way the light falls upon their draperies, as well as apparent additions to the upper and right-hand margins.⁴ The Spinola painting may be a version derived from the present work, though how and when this might have occurred remains unclear.⁵

Both the Louvre drawing and the present painting may be dated to Reni's youthful period in Bologna in the 1590s when he was working under the influence of his teacher, the Flemish painter, Denys Calvaert. The conception and execution of this work clearly show an affinity with Calvaert's small devotional works on copper, combining the colour and detail that Calvaert brought from his Flemish heritage with the mannerist tradition found in Bologna. Compare, for example, Calvaert's Holy Family with Saint Jerome and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, sold in these rooms, 3 December 2014, lot 18, and his Holy Family with Saint Elisabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, sold Milan, Sotheby's, 30 May 2006, lot 5. 

Here, the pyramidal design, the softness of the figures' features and the gentle landscape beyond are also typical of Reni's early paintings produced in the wake of his training in Calvaert's workshop, notwithstanding the fact that many of these are large works on canvas. The putti holding wreaths in the sky of The Vision of Saint Eustace from 1596, for instance, are eminently comparable to those in the present painting, while the figure of the Christ Child here finds some parallel with the forms of the two angels standing in The Appearance of the Virgin and Child to Saint Dominic, dating to 1597/98.⁶

1. See C. Johnston, The drawings of Guido Reni, doctoral diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, London 1974, vol. I, pp. 34–35, cat. no. 12; and C. Loisel, Dessins Bolonais du XVIIe siècle, vol. II, in Inventaire Général des Dessins Italiens, Musée du Louvre, vol. X, Paris 2013, p. 98, cat. no. 58, reproduced pp. 97 and 22, pl. 2.
2. This theory has been corroborated by Keith Christiansen and Emilio Negro.
3. P. Rotondi, La Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola a Genova, Milan 1967, p. 186, inv. no. 135 (as 'sec. XVII, S. Famiglia e S. Francesco'); Johnston 1974, vol. I, p. 35, under cat. no. 12 (as '17th-century anonymous', with incorrect inv. no. 260); V. Birke, Guido Reni: Zeichnungen, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 1981, p. 32, under cat. no. 7 (quoting directly from Johnston’s thesis); R. Spear, The 'Divine' Guido, New Haven and London 1997, p. 384, under note 10 (as not autograph).
4. Adding to a copper plate was an unusual practice, but not without precedent. See Johnston's entry on Annibale Carracci's The Vision of Saint Francis, in M. Laskin and M. Pantazzi (eds), Catalogue of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. European and American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, Ottawa 1987, vol. I, p. 60, inv. no. 18905, reproduced vol. II, p. 58, fig. 52.
5. Johnston speculates that the Spinola work may have been acquired at a very early date by Cardinal Orazio Spinola, vice-legate in Bologna from 1597–99, at the same time that he obtained a Calvaert copper depicting the Holy Family with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist of similar dimensions (Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, inv. no. 104), but this provenance has thus far proved difficult to verify. See Johnston 1974, vol. I, p. 35, under cat. no. 12.
6. S.D. Pepper, Guido Reni. L'opera completa, Novara 1988, pp. 213–15, cat. nos 2 and 6, reproduced figs 2 and 6.