Guercino

Barbieri, called Il Guercino, Giovanni Francesco
Barbieri, Giovanni Francesco, called Guercino

Bolognese, 1591 - 1666

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painter of the Italian 17th century (1591–1666)

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comte de Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières Caylus, Guercino, Landscape, c. 1720-1765, etching on laid paper, Gift of Faya Causey in memory of Philip Conisbee, 2024.83.4

Landscape

comte de Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières Caylus, Guercino · c. 1720-1765 · etching on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2024.83.4

Guercino, Landscape with Figures, 18th century, pen and brown ink on laid paper mounted on laid paper, The Edith Tanenbaum Rudolf Collection, 2018.26.11

Landscape with Figures

Guercino · 18th century · pen and brown ink on laid paper mounted on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2018.26.11

In this vertical portrait painting, a pale-skinned, bearded man holding a painter’s palette and brushes stands in front of a painting on an easel that shows a chubby child and a slender dog. The man stands in the lower right quadrant of the composition, close to us. Shown from the waist up, his body faces our left in profile, and he turns to look at us. His forehead is lined, and his left eye, to our right, turns in a bit toward his nose. His shoulder-length, wavy, ash-blond hair gleams. His brushy mustache flips up at the ends over closed pink lips, and he has a narrow strip of a beard on the hint of a double chin. He wears a black garment with a wide white collar, and white fabric peeks through a slit in the sleeve we can see. He holds the palette and five thin brushes in the hand closer to us and a sixth brush in his other hand. The palette is dotted with white, light brown, burnt orange, and black smears of paint. The painting within the painting takes up most of the composition, but a sliver of the easel’s legs and the top brace are visible along the upper and lower edges of the composition. The painting within shows a nude, small boy with pale, peachy skin. His blond hair curls onto his forehead and around his ears. He stands with one knee leaning against a rock to our right. He holds a small bow close to his body in his left hand, on our right, with a quiver of arrows slung across his chest. His right hand extends to our left to hook a finger into the collar of a sleek, light-brown dog that lies alongside him. The dog’s chest faces our left, but the head, with a long, narrow muzzle, turns back to gaze at the child. Near the dog’s front feet and the child’s standing foot is a square, light tan stone slab. The top surface is carved with a snake swallowing its tail. A dark brown rocky outcropping rises along the right side of the painting within the painting. Gray clouds skim across a vibrant blue sky above the dog and boy.
Guercino, Self-Portrait before a Painting of "Amor Fedele", 1655, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2005.13.1

Self-Portrait before a Painting of "Amor Fedele"

Guercino · 1655 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2005.13.1

Shown from the thighs up, a light-skinned man and woman gesture dramatically, partially covered only by colorful lengths of loosely draped fabric in this horizontal painting. To our left, the man stands with his lean, muscled body facing us but he turns his face to our right in profile to look at the woman with his chin dropped. His thick, dark hair is brushed back. He has a long, straight nose and his lips are parted. His left arm, on our right, is raised to shoulder height, elbow pointed out at the woman, and that hand is clenched in a fist in front of his chest. His other arm is slightly bent at his side, that hand also balled into a fist. A narrow, vivid cobalt-blue cloth winds and flutters around his body from behind him to our left, over the raised arm, and across his hips. To our right, the woman stands with her back to the man, and she looks back over her right shoulder. Her copper-red hair blows back from her face, lifting off her shoulders. She has light brown eyes under lowered brows, and the corners of her pink lips are pulled slightly down. She wears a teardrop-shaped pearl earring from the ear we can see and a headdress wrapped with more pearls at the back of her head. Her body is pale, soft, and rounded. Her arms bend at the elbows to cross in an X-shape in front of her bare breasts. With her left hand, closer to the man, she points an index finger at him. Around her body swirl two layers of satiny draperies, the outer one a honey orange, and an inner layer in dusty pink. Both people are lit from our right brightly enough to create deep shadows. Behind them, a bed at hip height has ivory-colored linens and a dark green drapery hanging to each side. The space recedes into darkness beyond the bed, contrasting with the brightness of the people.
Guercino, Amnon and Tamar, 1649-1650, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1986.17.1

Amnon and Tamar

Guercino · 1649-1650 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1986.17.1

Guercino, Amnon and Tamar, 1649, red chalk on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1989.14.1

Amnon and Tamar

Guercino · 1649 · red chalk on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1989.14.1

A nude woman with pale pink skin reclines under cream-white sheets in a bed as she reaches for the cloak of a man with light skin standing in front of the bed, who leans away with arms raised in this horizontal painting. The mattress runs along the bottom edge of the canvas, and the man is shown from the knees up. The woman’s bare torso faces us, hips stacked, as she turns her face to our right in profile, looking at the man. She props her body up with her right elbow, to our left, on a mauve-pink pillow. With that hand, she clutches the end of the man’s royal-blue cloak. With her other hand, she reaches with palm up across the body of the man toward his face. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled back under a muted red ribbon, woven with pearls, and gathered at the nape of her neck. Soft curls frame her forehead and temple. A teardrop pearl earring dangles from her right earlobe. Her nose is long and slender, and her small, pale peach lips are slightly parted. The man’s body is angled toward the woman, to our left, but he twists and leans away, to our right. With elbow raised, he grips her extended forearm with his right hand, to our left. He raises his other arm with his palm out. He looks up with brown eyes under raised brows. His mouth is open and his head tipped sharply away from the woman so his chin-length, wavy, brown hair hangs by his face. He wears an ochre-yellow, thigh-length tunic over a white shirt. A thin olive-colored belt is tied in a bow at his waist. His vivid blue cloak wraps over his right upper arm, farther from us, around his torso and hips, and is pulled by the woman. Rose-pink, shiny curtains frame the scene in the upper corners, and beyond, the background is swallowed in shadow.
Guercino, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, 1649, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1986.17.2

Joseph and Potiphar's Wife

Guercino · 1649 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1986.17.2

Guercino, Erminia, c. 1648, red chalk on cream laid paper, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Purchased as the Gift of Diane A. Nixon, 2007.111.101

Erminia

Guercino · c. 1648 · red chalk on cream laid paper ·  Accession ID  2007.111.101

Guercino, The Return of the Prodigal Son, c. 1640, pen and brown iron gall ink on laid paper, Gift of Diane Allen Nixon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1998.103.1

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Guercino · c. 1640 · pen and brown iron gall ink on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1998.103.1

Guercino, The Angel of the Annunciation, c. 1638/1639, pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper, Julius S. Held Collection, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1984.3.10

The Angel of the Annunciation

Guercino · c. 1638/1639 · pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1984.3.10

Guercino, Personification of Justice, c. 1640, pen and brown ink on laid paper, Gift of Donald Stone, 2022.40.58

Personification of Justice

Guercino · c. 1640 · pen and brown ink on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2022.40.58

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. Originally published 1688. Bologna, 1841. Reprint. 1974: 2:255-274.

1947

  • Mahon, Dennis. Studies in Seicento Art and Theory. London, 1947.

1968

  • Mahon, Dennis. Il Guercino: Catalogo critico dei dipinti. Exh. cat. Palazzo dell Archiginnasio, Bologna, 1968.

1988

  • Salerno, Luigi. I dipinto del Guercino. Rome, 1988.

1989

  • Stone, David. "Theory and Practice in Seicento Art: The Example of Guercino." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, 1989.

1991

  • Mahon, Dennis. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri: Il Guercino, 1591-1666. Exh. cat. Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna; Pinacoteca Civica and Chiesa del Rosario, Cento. Bologna, 1991.

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: 157-158.