Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino
![Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino - Obrazy starých mistr? Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino - Obrazy starých mistr?](/fileadmin/lot-images/38A130417/normal/giovanni-francesco-barbieri-il-guercino-5440524.jpg)
(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Venus, Mars, Amor and Time,
oil on canvas, 122 x 171 cm, framed
Provenance:
Possibly Manganoni collection (until 1688);
Private European Collection
We are extremely grateful to Nicholas Turner for confirming the attribution after examining the painting in the original.
This newly-discovered canvas, of exceptionally high quality and interest, is apparently a full-sized, experimental version for Guercino’s more fully painted treatment of the subject at Dunham Massey, Altrincham, Cheshire (fig. 1). (1) The Dunham Massey picture is usually dated around 1624-26, after Guercino’s departure from Rome in 1623, but it seems increasingly more likely that Guercino worked on the composition some two or three years earlier. This is suggested by the style of the figures, the mythological subject matter—rare in his paintings carried out following his visit to Rome—and the unusual horizontal oval format, with its allusion to the design of an Antique cameo.
An earlier date for both treatments of the Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is also suggested by the style of a pen-and-wash drawing, formerly on the London art market, which is evidently an early idea for the subject (fig. 2).(2) Only three protagonists appear in the drawing, Mars being omitted, and the composition is a horizontal rectangle rather than an oval. Venus is asleep on a bed as Amor sits on her lap in the centre, watching over her, as the personification of Time - without wings, but on his crutches - approaches from the left eyeing her hungrily. Pools of dark wash, accompanied by the occasional emphatic pen line create a powerful contrast with the white paper. Such a distinctive chiaroscuro finds an exact parallel with some of Guercino’s pen-and-wash studies for his famous St Petronilla altarpiece, painted in 1623 for St Peter’s, Rome, and now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina.(3)
The present version of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time (4) must have preceded that at Dunham Massey. This is clearly illustrated in the differences in the realization of an apparently insignificant detail, Venus’s left ear. Firstly, the pearl earring hanging down from her ear in the newly-discovered picture is absent from the Dunham Massey canvas, as well as from other versions of the subject, none of which share their same high quality. Perhaps the earring was suppressed because Venus was thought to be sporting enough gems on her amply encrusted headband. In theory, this piece of jewellery could well have been painted over in the Dunham Massey picture, but this seems unlikely because of two associated pentimenti for the positioning of the ear itself in the present canvas.
Venus’s ear was elevated by almost a centimetre. This adjustment is seen, above, by the repetition of the helix - the most visible of the two pentimenti - and, below, by the area of erasure corresponding to the lobe of the rejected, first position for the ear. The alteration was well made, since as first painted Venus’s ear was too low. The correction was evidently definitive, since it is in this new position that Venus’s ear appears in the Dunham Massey picture, as well as in other versions of the composition. Although the pearl and its mount were retained here, the jewel is isolated, since Guercino did not even bother to paint a hook or wire connecting it to Venus’s freshly painted lobe.
In spite of the prominence of both pentimenti, Guercino decided not to hide these changes to the ear, as giving the picture a harmonious finish seems not to have been a priority. This points to the experimental nature of the present canvas, as if the artist considered it more in terms of an actual-sized sketch, than a fully-painted, finished work for presentation to an important client. A similar practice had been employed earlier by Titian who, apart from Guido Reni, influenced Guercino more than any other painter. Titian was wont to keep full-sized versions of his more successful compositions in his studio, re-working them and then despatching freshly modified repetitions to clients, as and when required. Guercino, too, seems to have been happy to repeat successful inventions, perhaps regarding the earlier versions as trial-runs and then devoting more time to a greater consistency of finish in those that followed. This is demonstrated by the discovery of an increasing number of autograph replicas and variants, especially from the painter’s early period, up until the mid-1620s, for example his St Francis and the Angel of c. 1620, of which three autograph versions are known. (5) Lot no. 639 in the present sale [i.e. Madonna and Child, for painting of the same subject in a private collection, Frankfurt] is also a full-sized sketch, like the present example, but for a smaller, devotional painting.
Further indications that this important, newly-discovered picture of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is more in the nature of a full-sized sketch than a finished painting brought to completion, according to Guercino’s usual practice, are to be found in many pentimenti, suffice it to mention Time’s right hand pointing besides Venus’s ear. There are also many variations between the present canvas and that in Dunham Massey in the configuration of certain details—such as the overall shape of Venus’s white inner garment showing at her waist and the linen bedding tumbling from the cushion on which Amor struggles as he is ensnared in her net. Similarly, there are variations of handling and of thicknesses of paint. Mars’s shadowy features, his heavy red cloak and his armour are heavily painted, with the texture of the brushstrokes softened by accumulations of glazes. In other passages, such as in the figure of Time, especially in his left forearm and hand, and his cloak, and in Venus’s blue drapery the paint is applied more thinly and spontaneously, and seems so strongly diluted sometimes that it shares some effects with watercolour.
It is perhaps in the painting of the flesh, especially that of Venus and Amor, that the difference in finish between the two autograph versions of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is best revealed. The pentimenti in the contours at Venus’s stomach and breast, as well as to her left arm, are abundant and seem more clearly visible to the naked eye here than in the Dunham Massey picture, where there are similarly many such changes. Perhaps more noticeable, however, is the greater softness of texture in the face and body of Venus in the Dunham Massey picture than here, very likely a result of the use of more glazes. Amor’s chubby frame is certainly more sketchily painted than its correspondent in the Dunham Massey canvas, the touches of red at his hands and feet less integrated with the overall pallor of his infant flesh, though his facial features seem more legible without so plentiful a layering of shadow.
Why did Guercino leave this painting unfinished, contrary to his usual practice? One likely reason is that he realized the proportions and inter-relationships of the figures was not as harmonious as he would have wished, with Mars and Time closer to each other than their counterparts in the Dunham Massey picture, and the heads of both Venus and Time too large compared with that of Mars. Today such issues of scale are hardly noticeable, but to Guercino and a demanding client, they might well have proved critical.
What happened to the present painting after the finished version left Guercino’s studio? It probably served as a model for workshop replicas, such as the one now preserved in the Museum of São Paulo. (6) The São Paulo replica shows some differences from the Dunham Massey version - clearly recognizable in the shaping of the drapery under Cupid’s wing and of the white cloth of Venus’robe - which can be explained by a careful comparison with this newly discovered picture.
This important composition by Guercino inspired other artists like Anthony van Dyck, Simon Vouet, and Adrian van der Werff. (7) Guercino himself revisited the subject in his later career, elaborating a new composition based on this earlier invention. (8) The composition does not depend upon any specific textual source, instead assimilating elements from various subjects, especially the story of the adultery of Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan, but also the Four Stages of Human Life, the Punishment of Cupid, and the Triumph of Time. The painting has a strong emblematic character, emphasized even more by its oval format. The net above Cupid is a reference to Mars and Venus caught in the invisible trap prepared by Vulcan in order to ensnare the lovers and to expose them to the Olimpian gods. In a literary tradition extending from Homer, Vulcan’s net is praised for being similar to a spiderweb, nearly undetectable and as strong as chains, forged with virtuosity by the divine craftsman. In the present painting, Guercino sketched the net very quickly: above Cupid’s head, the thin threads of the net are suggested with soft, shimmering brushstrokes, but in the later version, the reticulated structure is more defined. Guercino’s spontaneous approach to the net in this picture highlights its status as an earlier version.
We are extremely grateful to Nicholas Turner and Anka Ziefer for cataloguing the present painting.
(1) L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 109; and Guercino in Britain, Paintings from British Collections, exh. cat. by M. Helston and T. Henry, National Gallery, London, June to July, 1991, no. 16.
(2) Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over black chalk (sale, Christie’s, London,
(3) July, 1990, lot 87). In the catalogue entry, the drawing is rightly said to date from the early 1620s. The identification of the female figure as Venus is possible due to the similarity of the drawing to a sketch in Windsor Castle for the Lying Venus painted by Guercino in 1615-17 on the fireplace of the Camera della Venere at the Casa Pannini in Cento (Salerno, 1988, pp. 106-107, no. 24 I: today Pinacoteca Civica, Cento). The shadow on the right side of the Windsor sheet seems to indicate a standing figure, eliminated in the final composition, but taken up again for the figure of Time in the later drawing. For a discussion of the Windsor drawing see: D. Mahon & N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge 1989, p. 1 cat. n. 1. 3 Salerno, 1988, pp. 174-76, no. 92. One preparatory study for this great altarpiece, Study of Gravediggers, in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, compares especially well with the ex-London drawing of Venus, Amor and Time (inv. no. 2781; Mahon and Turner, 1989, no. 25).
(4) The painting appeared in 2008 with an erroneous attribution to Lorenzo Gennari: Genoa, Cambi Casa d’Aste, Oct. 21-24, 2008, Lot 781.
(5) There are versions in the Grimaldi Fava Collection, Cento (D. Benati, ed., La Grazia dell’Arte, Collezione Grimaldi Fava, Milan, 2009, pp. 186-89, no. 41); the Muzeum Narodoue, Warsaw (Salerno, 1988, p. 152, no. 72); and Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (Salerno, 1988, p. 180, no 98).
(6) Attr. to Lorenzo Gennari by the author, 127 x 173,4 cm, São Paulo, The São Paulo Museum of Art, inv. n. 1498 P.
(7) Anthony van Dyck, Four Stages of Human Life, Vicenza, Museo Civico; Simon Vouet, Mars, Venus, Cupid and Time, Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. A painting by Adriaen van der Werff Mars, Venus, Cupid and Time described as imitation after Guercino in: Bohain, Paris, January 17-18, 1816, Getty Provenance Index databases)
(8) A later, probably lost painting of the same subject is mentioned in Guercino’s Libro dei Conti: Salerno, 1988, p. 383. It could be related to a painting, formerly at the Castle of Strzelce Opolskie (Silesia), probably destroyed during the bombing in 1945. A photograph of the painting was published by Richard Förster (in: Schlesien. Illustrierte Zeitschrift, 6, 1912-13, p. 306-308). A drawing depicting a variant of the same scene was sold at Christie’s, New York, January 11, 1994, lot 218 (as attributed to Domenico Maria Canuti), now at RC Gallery, Berkely, Cailfornia (with an attribution to Cesare Gennari).
17.04.2013 - 18:00
- Dosažená cena: **
-
EUR 146.700,-
- Odhadní cena:
-
EUR 200.000,- do EUR 300.000,-
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino
(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Venus, Mars, Amor and Time,
oil on canvas, 122 x 171 cm, framed
Provenance:
Possibly Manganoni collection (until 1688);
Private European Collection
We are extremely grateful to Nicholas Turner for confirming the attribution after examining the painting in the original.
This newly-discovered canvas, of exceptionally high quality and interest, is apparently a full-sized, experimental version for Guercino’s more fully painted treatment of the subject at Dunham Massey, Altrincham, Cheshire (fig. 1). (1) The Dunham Massey picture is usually dated around 1624-26, after Guercino’s departure from Rome in 1623, but it seems increasingly more likely that Guercino worked on the composition some two or three years earlier. This is suggested by the style of the figures, the mythological subject matter—rare in his paintings carried out following his visit to Rome—and the unusual horizontal oval format, with its allusion to the design of an Antique cameo.
An earlier date for both treatments of the Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is also suggested by the style of a pen-and-wash drawing, formerly on the London art market, which is evidently an early idea for the subject (fig. 2).(2) Only three protagonists appear in the drawing, Mars being omitted, and the composition is a horizontal rectangle rather than an oval. Venus is asleep on a bed as Amor sits on her lap in the centre, watching over her, as the personification of Time - without wings, but on his crutches - approaches from the left eyeing her hungrily. Pools of dark wash, accompanied by the occasional emphatic pen line create a powerful contrast with the white paper. Such a distinctive chiaroscuro finds an exact parallel with some of Guercino’s pen-and-wash studies for his famous St Petronilla altarpiece, painted in 1623 for St Peter’s, Rome, and now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina.(3)
The present version of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time (4) must have preceded that at Dunham Massey. This is clearly illustrated in the differences in the realization of an apparently insignificant detail, Venus’s left ear. Firstly, the pearl earring hanging down from her ear in the newly-discovered picture is absent from the Dunham Massey canvas, as well as from other versions of the subject, none of which share their same high quality. Perhaps the earring was suppressed because Venus was thought to be sporting enough gems on her amply encrusted headband. In theory, this piece of jewellery could well have been painted over in the Dunham Massey picture, but this seems unlikely because of two associated pentimenti for the positioning of the ear itself in the present canvas.
Venus’s ear was elevated by almost a centimetre. This adjustment is seen, above, by the repetition of the helix - the most visible of the two pentimenti - and, below, by the area of erasure corresponding to the lobe of the rejected, first position for the ear. The alteration was well made, since as first painted Venus’s ear was too low. The correction was evidently definitive, since it is in this new position that Venus’s ear appears in the Dunham Massey picture, as well as in other versions of the composition. Although the pearl and its mount were retained here, the jewel is isolated, since Guercino did not even bother to paint a hook or wire connecting it to Venus’s freshly painted lobe.
In spite of the prominence of both pentimenti, Guercino decided not to hide these changes to the ear, as giving the picture a harmonious finish seems not to have been a priority. This points to the experimental nature of the present canvas, as if the artist considered it more in terms of an actual-sized sketch, than a fully-painted, finished work for presentation to an important client. A similar practice had been employed earlier by Titian who, apart from Guido Reni, influenced Guercino more than any other painter. Titian was wont to keep full-sized versions of his more successful compositions in his studio, re-working them and then despatching freshly modified repetitions to clients, as and when required. Guercino, too, seems to have been happy to repeat successful inventions, perhaps regarding the earlier versions as trial-runs and then devoting more time to a greater consistency of finish in those that followed. This is demonstrated by the discovery of an increasing number of autograph replicas and variants, especially from the painter’s early period, up until the mid-1620s, for example his St Francis and the Angel of c. 1620, of which three autograph versions are known. (5) Lot no. 639 in the present sale [i.e. Madonna and Child, for painting of the same subject in a private collection, Frankfurt] is also a full-sized sketch, like the present example, but for a smaller, devotional painting.
Further indications that this important, newly-discovered picture of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is more in the nature of a full-sized sketch than a finished painting brought to completion, according to Guercino’s usual practice, are to be found in many pentimenti, suffice it to mention Time’s right hand pointing besides Venus’s ear. There are also many variations between the present canvas and that in Dunham Massey in the configuration of certain details—such as the overall shape of Venus’s white inner garment showing at her waist and the linen bedding tumbling from the cushion on which Amor struggles as he is ensnared in her net. Similarly, there are variations of handling and of thicknesses of paint. Mars’s shadowy features, his heavy red cloak and his armour are heavily painted, with the texture of the brushstrokes softened by accumulations of glazes. In other passages, such as in the figure of Time, especially in his left forearm and hand, and his cloak, and in Venus’s blue drapery the paint is applied more thinly and spontaneously, and seems so strongly diluted sometimes that it shares some effects with watercolour.
It is perhaps in the painting of the flesh, especially that of Venus and Amor, that the difference in finish between the two autograph versions of Venus, Mars, Amor and Time is best revealed. The pentimenti in the contours at Venus’s stomach and breast, as well as to her left arm, are abundant and seem more clearly visible to the naked eye here than in the Dunham Massey picture, where there are similarly many such changes. Perhaps more noticeable, however, is the greater softness of texture in the face and body of Venus in the Dunham Massey picture than here, very likely a result of the use of more glazes. Amor’s chubby frame is certainly more sketchily painted than its correspondent in the Dunham Massey canvas, the touches of red at his hands and feet less integrated with the overall pallor of his infant flesh, though his facial features seem more legible without so plentiful a layering of shadow.
Why did Guercino leave this painting unfinished, contrary to his usual practice? One likely reason is that he realized the proportions and inter-relationships of the figures was not as harmonious as he would have wished, with Mars and Time closer to each other than their counterparts in the Dunham Massey picture, and the heads of both Venus and Time too large compared with that of Mars. Today such issues of scale are hardly noticeable, but to Guercino and a demanding client, they might well have proved critical.
What happened to the present painting after the finished version left Guercino’s studio? It probably served as a model for workshop replicas, such as the one now preserved in the Museum of São Paulo. (6) The São Paulo replica shows some differences from the Dunham Massey version - clearly recognizable in the shaping of the drapery under Cupid’s wing and of the white cloth of Venus’robe - which can be explained by a careful comparison with this newly discovered picture.
This important composition by Guercino inspired other artists like Anthony van Dyck, Simon Vouet, and Adrian van der Werff. (7) Guercino himself revisited the subject in his later career, elaborating a new composition based on this earlier invention. (8) The composition does not depend upon any specific textual source, instead assimilating elements from various subjects, especially the story of the adultery of Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan, but also the Four Stages of Human Life, the Punishment of Cupid, and the Triumph of Time. The painting has a strong emblematic character, emphasized even more by its oval format. The net above Cupid is a reference to Mars and Venus caught in the invisible trap prepared by Vulcan in order to ensnare the lovers and to expose them to the Olimpian gods. In a literary tradition extending from Homer, Vulcan’s net is praised for being similar to a spiderweb, nearly undetectable and as strong as chains, forged with virtuosity by the divine craftsman. In the present painting, Guercino sketched the net very quickly: above Cupid’s head, the thin threads of the net are suggested with soft, shimmering brushstrokes, but in the later version, the reticulated structure is more defined. Guercino’s spontaneous approach to the net in this picture highlights its status as an earlier version.
We are extremely grateful to Nicholas Turner and Anka Ziefer for cataloguing the present painting.
(1) L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 109; and Guercino in Britain, Paintings from British Collections, exh. cat. by M. Helston and T. Henry, National Gallery, London, June to July, 1991, no. 16.
(2) Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over black chalk (sale, Christie’s, London,
(3) July, 1990, lot 87). In the catalogue entry, the drawing is rightly said to date from the early 1620s. The identification of the female figure as Venus is possible due to the similarity of the drawing to a sketch in Windsor Castle for the Lying Venus painted by Guercino in 1615-17 on the fireplace of the Camera della Venere at the Casa Pannini in Cento (Salerno, 1988, pp. 106-107, no. 24 I: today Pinacoteca Civica, Cento). The shadow on the right side of the Windsor sheet seems to indicate a standing figure, eliminated in the final composition, but taken up again for the figure of Time in the later drawing. For a discussion of the Windsor drawing see: D. Mahon & N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge 1989, p. 1 cat. n. 1. 3 Salerno, 1988, pp. 174-76, no. 92. One preparatory study for this great altarpiece, Study of Gravediggers, in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, compares especially well with the ex-London drawing of Venus, Amor and Time (inv. no. 2781; Mahon and Turner, 1989, no. 25).
(4) The painting appeared in 2008 with an erroneous attribution to Lorenzo Gennari: Genoa, Cambi Casa d’Aste, Oct. 21-24, 2008, Lot 781.
(5) There are versions in the Grimaldi Fava Collection, Cento (D. Benati, ed., La Grazia dell’Arte, Collezione Grimaldi Fava, Milan, 2009, pp. 186-89, no. 41); the Muzeum Narodoue, Warsaw (Salerno, 1988, p. 152, no. 72); and Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (Salerno, 1988, p. 180, no 98).
(6) Attr. to Lorenzo Gennari by the author, 127 x 173,4 cm, São Paulo, The São Paulo Museum of Art, inv. n. 1498 P.
(7) Anthony van Dyck, Four Stages of Human Life, Vicenza, Museo Civico; Simon Vouet, Mars, Venus, Cupid and Time, Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. A painting by Adriaen van der Werff Mars, Venus, Cupid and Time described as imitation after Guercino in: Bohain, Paris, January 17-18, 1816, Getty Provenance Index databases)
(8) A later, probably lost painting of the same subject is mentioned in Guercino’s Libro dei Conti: Salerno, 1988, p. 383. It could be related to a painting, formerly at the Castle of Strzelce Opolskie (Silesia), probably destroyed during the bombing in 1945. A photograph of the painting was published by Richard Förster (in: Schlesien. Illustrierte Zeitschrift, 6, 1912-13, p. 306-308). A drawing depicting a variant of the same scene was sold at Christie’s, New York, January 11, 1994, lot 218 (as attributed to Domenico Maria Canuti), now at RC Gallery, Berkely, Cailfornia (with an attribution to Cesare Gennari).
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Aukce: | Obrazy starých mistr? |
Typ aukce: | Salónní aukce |
Datum: | 17.04.2013 - 18:00 |
Místo konání aukce: | Wien | Palais Dorotheum |
Prohlídka: | 06.04. - 17.04.2013 |
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