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Home » Collection » Joseph and Potiphar's Wife
  • Overview
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Technical Summary
  • Bibliography
Overview

For this depiction of Joseph spurning the advances of his Egyptian employer's wife, as recounted in the Book of Genesis, Guercino chose a three-quarter length format that presses the life-sized figures close to the spectator. He has filled the scene with the bed -- all rumpled sheets and opulent curtains. As the temptress reaches for the strong and handsome Joseph, he struggles vigorously to extricate himself. But she holds tight to the vivid blue cloak and sets Joseph spinning like a top out of his garment. In panic, he turns his imploring eyes heavenward, seeming to realize that even if he escapes with his virtue unscathed, he is helplessly ensnared in an evil plot; Potiphar's wife, bejeweled and confident, will later use the cloak to support her denunciation of Joseph as the aggressor.

With a delicate play of light on the seductress' profile, the artist shows the very moment of lust shading into treachery. If Guercino's narration is clear and eloquent, his presentation of the moral implications is more subtle: as this woman's beauty conceals her wickedness, so the visual lushness of Guercino's painting disguises a serious lesson about righteous conduct.

Provenance

Commissioned by Aurelio Zaneletti [or Zanoletti] of Reggio in 1649.[1] (Samuel Woodburn, 1820-1823).[2] Charles Stewart, 3d marquess of Londonderry [1778-1854], London, by 1833;[3] by descent to Alexander Charles Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 9th marquess of Londonderry [b. 1937], Wynyard Park;[4] purchased 1986 by NGA.

[1] This painting and NGA 1986.17.1 were produced by Guercino between 1649 and 1650. Zaneletti was a collector from Reggio Emilia, and the artist's account book records on 10 March 1649 a down payment of twenty-one scudi by Zaneletti for a "quadro con due mezze figure." On 25 August of the same year Guercino recorded that he had received the final payment from Zaneletti of 150 scudi for the finished painting of a "fuga di Gioseppe." An entry in the account book of 26 March 1650 records another payment of 150 scudi from Zaneletti for a painting of Amnon and Tamar.

[2] That the dealer Samuel Woodburn purchased the painting and its companion in Italy and transported them to England is suggested by a series of letters from his good friend Sir Thomas Lawrence: published in D. E. Williams, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 2 vols., London, 1831; this reference was provided by Burton Fredericksen of The Getty Provenance Index (letter of 8 February 1988, NGA curatorial files). On 29 June 1820, Lawrence asked Samuel Woodburn, then on the continent, probably in Italy, "What will you sell the Potiphar's Wife for, unaccompanied by the other picture? Suppose you were to make up your mind to this, Lord D. likes the other best. There's a good chance of your selling the Potiphar's Wife to the M..." (Williams 1831: 2:280). Writing to Woodburn in Rome on 17 December 1822, Lawrence records the arrival at Calais of "the Guercinos" (Williams 1831: 2:281). In letters to Woodburn in Paris of early 1823 and of 8 March 1823, Lawrence says how much he likes "the Guercinos," especially the Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (Williams 1831: 2:294, 413). "The M" may be Lawrence's good friend and patron, Charles Stewart, who, however, succeeded to the marquesate of Londonderry only in 1822. Although Stewart owned the paintings by 1833 (see note 3), there is no record that he purchased them from Woodburn.

[3] M. Passavant, Tour of a German Artist in England, 2 vols., London, 1836: 178, mentions the paintings in the Londonderry collection, misidentifying the Amnon and Tamar as "Tarquin and Lucretia."

[4] M. Montgomery Hyde, Londonderry House and Its Pictures, London, 1937: 15, 56.

Exhibition History
1986
The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, shown only at National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986-1987, not in cat.
1991
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino 1591-1666, Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 1991, no. 122, color repro.
1991
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino 1591-1666, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 1991-1992, no. 65, color repro.
1992
Guercino: Master Painter of the Baroque, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 47, color repro.
1996
Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 64-65, color repro.
1999
Saints & Sinners: Caravaggio & the Baroque Image, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, 1999, pl. 25.
1999
Seeing Double: Two Versions of Guercino's 'Joseph and Potiphar's Wife', Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1999, fig. 6.
Bibliography
1841
Malvasia, Carlo Cesare. Felsina Pittrice. Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi con aggiunte correzioni e note inedite dell'autore di Giampietro Zanotti e di altri scrittori. 2 vols. Bologna, 1974: 267, 329-330 (originally published 1678).
1968
Mahon, Denis. Il Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 1591-1666: Catalogo critico dei dipinti). Exh. cat. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, Bologna, 1968: 188.
1982
Artioli, Nerio, and Elio Monducci, with Denis Mahon. Dipinti "reggiani" del Bonone e del Guercino. Exh. cat. Basilica della B.V. della Ghiara, Reggio Emilia, 1982: 108-110, cat. 20-21 (not exhibited).
1986
Mahon, Denis, in The Age of Correggio and the Carracci. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Washington, D.C., 1986: 481, n. 2.
1988
Salerno, Luigi. I dipinti del Guercino. Rome, 1988: 332-333, no. 261-262, color repro.
1989
Mahon, Denis, and Nicholas Turner. The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle. Cambridge, 1989: 192, no. 657.
1989
Willette, Thomas. "Guercino's Paintings of 'Joseph with the Wife of Potiphar' and 'Amnon and Tamar,' and Research on Massimo Stanzione." Center 9: Research Reports and Record of Activities. Washington, D.C., 1989: 97-98.
1991
Mazza, Angelo. La collezione dei dipinti antichi della Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena. Bologna, 1991: 147.
1991
Russell, Francis. "Guercino in England." In Guercino in Britain. Paintings from British Collections. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London. The Burlington Magazine 133, suppl. London, 1991: 10, figs. 10-11.
1991
Stone, David. Guercino: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991: 255-257, no. 246, color repro.
1991
Stone, David. Guercino, Master Draftsman. Works from North American Collections. Exh. cat. Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bologna, 1991: 74-76, figs. 29b-c; 222.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 111, repro. (not in 1995 rev. ed.).
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 162-170, color repro. 165.
1999
Seeing Double: Two Versions of Guercino's 'Joseph and Potiphar's Wife'. Exh. cat. Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1999: fig. 6, color repro.
2005
Fahy, Everett, ed. The Wrightsman Pictures. New Haven, 2005: 142, under cat. 39, fig. 2.
Technical Summary

The support is a coarsely and heavily woven twill fabric. The ground is dark and thick with large white particles; its fine pebbly surface shows through the thin paint layer, which was broadly and quickly applied. X-radiographs reveal slight changes in the sheets around the woman's legs.

The tacking margins have been opened and incorporated into the present picture surface. Scattered paint losses have been inpainted throughout. Extensive abrasion is located in the background drapery, in the blue coat, and in the flesh tones. The paint used for the background has altered, changing the contrast between background and foreground. Discolored varnish was removed and the painting was restored by Michael Swicklik in 1986.