(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada,
oil on canvas, 60 x 43 cm, framed

Provenance:
probably Borghese collection, Rome;
Bradford De Wolf collection, USA;
and by descent to Francis Colt de Wolf Junior (1926–1994) and his wife Princess Dorota Drucka Lubecka (1930–2006);
her sale, Doyle, New York, 16 May 2007, lot 66 (as Italian School, 17th Century);
Private collection, Rome

Exhibited:
Rome, Galleria Spada, Un Inedito del Guercino, Ritratti allo specchio del Cardinale Bernardino Spada, 9 April – 30 June 2008;
Tivoli, Villa d’Este, Ritratto Barocco, Dipinti del ‘600 e ‘700 nelle Raccolte Private, 3 July – 2 November 2008;
Rome, Palazzo Barberini – Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Da Guercino a Caravaggio, Sir Denis Mahon e l’Arte Italiana del XVII secolo, 26 September 2014 – 8 February 2015

Literature:
C. Strinati, M. L. Vicini, A. Emiliani, C. Falcucci, in: Un Inedito del Guercino, Ritratti allo specchio del Cardinale Bernardino Spada, ed. by M. L. Vicini, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2008, pp. 7–9, 10, 13–20, 26–27, 28 (as Guercino);
Ritratto Barocco, Dipinti del ‘600 e ‘700 nelle Raccolte Private, ed. by F. Petrucci, exhibition catalogue, Tivoli 2008, pp. 36–38 (as Guercino);
A. Emiliani, Studio per un inedito del Guercino, il ritratto di Bernardino Spada, in: I Cento Cinquant’Anni della Cassa di Risparmio di Cento, ed. by A. Lazzarini and G. Campanili, Bologna 2009, pp. 77–80 (as Guercino);
M. L. Vicini, in: Da Guercino a Caravaggio, Sir Denis Mahon e l’Arte Italiana del XVII secolo, ed. by A. Coliva, M. Gregori, S. Androsov, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2014, pp. 130–131 (as Guercino);
N. Turner, The Paintings of Guercino. A revised and expanded catalogue raisonné, Ugo Bozzi, Rome (forthcoming publication, as Guercino)

The present painting is Guercino’s small-sized oil sketch for the half-length portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada (1594–1661), now in the Galleria Spada, Rome. In the Cardinal’s last year of tenure as Papal Legate of Bologna, a position he had held from 1627 until 1631, he sent two courtiers to Cento to collect a painting of Saint Luke and to bring Guercino back to Bologna to paint his portrait (‘perché facesse il suo ritratto’).

The artist probably made this oil sketch (as well as several preparatory drawings) on that occasion, for it seems unlikely that he would have begun the full-sized painted portrait on site in Bologna: not only would the canvas have been too large to carry back and forth to Cento - especially if still wet - but this was the sort of picture he normally carried out in the studio. Technical examination of the present canvas shows that it has never been cut down, implying that it was portable enough for Guercino to have worked exclusively on it during a few sittings from life. This interpretation of its function is reinforced by a certain harshness in the application of the paint in the sitter’s bright scarlet vestments, the looser handling, the more emphatic chiaroscuro contrasts (especially in the face) and the absence of finishing touches - a direct type of handling that is symptomatic of a painting made on the spot. In a painting executed over a longer time period and under studio conditions, such areas would be more subtly modulated. 

Though the present sketch is smaller than the Galleria Spada Portrait of Cardinal Spada, (96.8 x 87.8 cm) the size of the head, biretta, collar and other details correspond more or less in scale, suggesting that the head could have been traced directly from the sketch onto the prepared surface of the larger canvas. The final portrait includes further embellishments, such as the flap of the Cardinal’s collar over his left shoulder, which is brought out from the shadow and extended; another is the Cardinal’s right ear, which is now seen poking through his more fetching brown rather than black hair; and, finally, the softening of the highlight that runs along his nose, from its bridge to its tip in the sketch, and the compensating increase of the highlight on the Cardinal’s forehead in the finished picture. 

At the original sessions with the sitter, Guercino would also have made a number of drawings of the Cardinal, of which the most striking to have survived is that in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. H 103; see C. van Tuyll, Guercino: (1591-1666); drawings from Dutch collections, Haarlem 1991, no. 22, repr.), where the prelate stands full length, emphasizing a point with the thumb and forefinger of his raised right hand. Another full-length study is in the Louvre (standing full length, but with the head drawn on a separate piece of paper, in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. RF 34506; see C. Loisel, Dessin bolonais du XVIIe siècle, II, Musée du Louvre, Paris 2013, no. 595, repr.).

These studies imply that at an early stage of the commission, the Cardinal must have considered asking Guercino to represent him whole length, along the lines of Guido Reni’s magnificent portrait of the same sitter seated whole length at his desk, now also in the Galleria Spada, Rome, painted in 1630–31. Seen side by side on the same wall of the gallery, Guercino’s half-length portrait seems low key. Of the two likenesses, Guercino’s shows the Cardinal in a more sympathetic light and a normal human being is detectable beneath all the trappings of high ecclesiastical office.

Cardinal Bernardino Spada (Brisighella 1594-Rome 1661) was one of the most educated, cultured and avant-garde art collectors in seventeenth-century Rome and he appreciated the innovations introduced by Caravaggio, as well as Bolognese classicism. As a patron of the arts, Cardinal Spada knew Guido Reni as well as Guercino, during the years of his Papal Legation in Bologna (1627-1631) after his Nunciature in Paris. Whilst in Bologna, the Cardinal sat to the two great Emilian painters and both these portraits are in the Galleria Spada, Rome.

We are grateful to Nicolas Turner for his help in cataloguing the present lot. This painting will be included as a fully autograph work in his forthcoming revised and expanded catalogue raisonné (see literature).