Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

Guercino's observations of human beings going about their daily lives resulted in many fascinating and intriguing drawings, some of a caricatural nature, others not. Here, a young woman, apparently unwell, rests on a bed, her upper body propped up on a cushion, while a maid tends to her, and two putti play nearby. 

The artist's 'compassionate and charitable nature' is recorded by his biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616-1693).¹ Guercino clearly engaged sincerely with the lives of those around him, showing empathy for the poor and less fortunate, and capturing fleeting moments in the lives of all sorts of people. Drawings such as the present work were clearly executed for their own sake, and in most cases cannot be linked with any painted works.  The artist was particularly attached to his drawings, which he preserved and guarded jealously. 

In this sheet, Guercino employed the rapid, vigorous pen strokes that he often used when depicting the reality that surrounded him. As Sir Denis Mahon and Nicholas Turner have observed, 'The financial success Guercino enjoyed from his work does not seem to have isolated him from the community of his native town’, and it seems likely that sheets of this type were drawn while the artist was still in Cento, rather than during his late period in Bologna.²

1. C.C. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, vite de'pittori bolognesi, 1678, (ed. Forni, Bologna 1974, vol. II, p. 300)

2.  D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge 1989, p. 110