GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, CALLED IL GUERCINO (1591-1666)

STUDY OF A FLYING PUTTO
For 'La Madonna del Rosario' in San Marco, Osimo
 
Bears inscription in pen verso Marià Elvira Celia Méndez de Bernasconi / 1977 [L.5374]
Bears inscription in pencil verso Gennari originale 4430
Red chalk on laid paper
12.5 x 10.2 cm
 
PROVENANCE
 
Juan and Felix Bernasconi, Milan (mid-19th century);
By descent to Marià Elvira Celia Méndez de Bernasconi (1927-2005), Buenos Aires [Lugt 5374]; 
Private collection, U.K.
 
 
 
 
 
 
We are grateful to Prof. David Stone for his generously contributing the following catalogue note, and for endorsing the attribution on the basis of digital images. This charming red chalk figure study of a flying putto by Guercino is a welcome addition to the numerous preparatory studies by the master for his important altarpiece of the Virgin of the Rosary with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena, which he painted in 1641–42 for the church of San Marco Evangelista at Osimo. Beautifully restored, the picture is still in situ on the high altar (fig. III).[1] This previously unpublished sheet can be connected to the putto with wings holding roses (symbolizing the rosary) in the upper left corner of the canvas (fig. I).
 
 
 
As is characteristic of Guercino’s methods—even in finished studies for individual figures such as this one which typically come towards the tail end of his creative process—the paintings do not slavishly follow their drawn counterparts.[2] In the Osimo altarpiece, while leaving the delineation of the putto’s hip and belly projected in the drawing intact, Guercino decided to raise the positions of both arms. The right arm in the painted version now swings across the putto’s body at shoulder level, obscuring the neck and even a bit of the chin. The left arm now is raised straight up. Guercino’s adjustments to his compositions and figures often continued well into the painting phase: for example, Denis Mahon noted a pentimento to our putto’s right hand in the Osimo canvas (not visible in photographs).[3]
 
 
 
 
Of the many drawings connected with this project, which was originally ordered by Cardinal Agostino Galamini (1522–1639), Bishop of Osimo and titular of the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome,[4] the red chalk sheet of Four Putti recently on the art market and now in the National Trust at the Vyne, Basingstoke, is particularly close in handling and morphology to the present sketch (see fig. II below).[5] One of twenty-eight Guercino drawings assembled into what was known as the “Chute Album,” [6] the Basingstoke sheet demonstrates how much Guercino subsequently deviated from his original ideas for the putti when he came to paint the right side of the canvas. The drawn putti are now reversed or eliminated entirely from the painted work. In the far-left area of the Chute drawing is a wingless putto who was thoroughly reconceived in the sheet presented here. Guercino’s drawings were surprisingly experimental and his methods fluid as he worked his way towards a finished, painted product.