(Bologna 1575–1642)
Fortuna with a purse,
oil on canvas, 152 x 130 cm, framed

Provenance:
Abbot Giovanni Carlo Gavotti, Bologna, circa 1635;
Benadduce Benadduci, Tolentino, circa 1638;
thence by descent to Olimpia Benadduci, circa 1750;
thence by descent to Stefano Gentiloni, Tolentino, 1925;
thence by descent to the Gentiloni family, Palazzo Silveri Gentiloni, Tolentino;
Private European collection;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 15 October 2013, lot 595;
where acquired by the present owner;
Private collection, Belgium

Literature:
L. Assarino, Sensi di umiltà e stupore intorno la grandezza dell’Em.mo Card. Sacchetti, e le pitture di Guido Reni, Bologna 1639, pp. 27-29 (as Guido Reni);
C. C. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, Bologna 1678, ed. Bologna 1841, I, p. 96-97, II, p. 24, 31, 320 (as Guido Reni);
F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, Florence 1681–1774, V, 1702, pp. 327–328 (ed. Florence 1812, X, pp. 341-42) (as Guido Reni);
G. Benaducci, Cenni Biografici sul Benadduce Benadduci e memorie sui dipinti da lui allogati al Guercino ed a Guido Reni, Tolentino 1886, pp. 20-21 (as Guido Reni);
E. Baccheschi, L´opera completa di Guido Reni, Milan 1971, mentioned under no. 117b (as a copy);
A. Busiri Vici, Contributi per “La Fortuna” di Guido Reni, in: Studi di Storia dell´arte in onore di Antonio Morassi, Rome 1971, p. 232;
R. Petrangolini Benedetti Panici, La Fortuna di Guido Reni, in: Notizie da Palazzo Albani, X, 1976, no. 2, pp. 56-57 (as Guido Reni);
D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni. A complete catalogue of his works with an introductory text, Oxford 1984, p. 277, no. 166A.1 (as a copy);
D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni, l´opera completa, Novara 1988, p. 287, no. 158.1 (as a copy);
D. S. Pepper/D. Mahon, Guido Reni’s Fortuna with a Purse rediscovered, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXLI, no. 1152, March 1999, pp. 156–163 (as Guido Reni);
R. E. Spear, Guido Reni’s Fortuna, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXLI, no. 1156, July 1999, p. 422 (as in accordance with the article by D. S. Pepper and D. Mahon of March 1999);
C. Cropper/L. Pericolo, Felsina Pittrice: The Lives of the Bolognese Painters. Vol. IX: Life of Guido Reni, London/Turnhout 2018, pp. 78-79, pp. 297-298, note 219 and p. 394, fig. 258 (forthcoming publication - as Guido Reni)

We are grateful to Danile Benati, Erich Schleier and Nicholas Turner for all independently confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

We are also grateful to Lorenzo Pericolo for also independently confirming the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original. This painting will be included in his forthcoming publication on the life of Guido Reni (see literature).

The personification of Fortune, covered only by a lightly fluttering pink drape, glides over the globe, holding a palm frond and a sceptre in her left hand while with her right she scatters coins and gems from a purse. A putto in flight representing Chance (Kairòs in Greek, Occasio in Latin) holds her back by her hair. This iconography of Fortune conforms to the medieval tradition, which following the example of antique images representing the protagonist on a wheel, allusive to the changing character of her action, while the presence of Chance or Opportunity suggests the contrary notion of unstable influences in human affairs.

The present painting is an entirely autograph work by Guido Reni. It is a work of exceptional importance not only on account of its composition, which being especially pleasing, was immediately well received, but also for the extraordinarily high quality of the painting, as well as the extremely prestigious collection history of the present work.

The research of D. Stephen Pepper and Denis Mahon published in 1999 (see literature) has shed considerable light on the picture’s history. They were able to reconstruct the circumstances of the commission of this painting, as well as its subsequent ownership history, thereby clarifying a situation that had been made complex owing to the information related to another version of the subject made in the studio of Guido Reni, in which the figure of Fortune is represented holding a crown rather than a purse.

According to Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ professori del disegno (1702), Guido Reni painted the present version, in which Fortune holds a purse, for the Bolognese Abbot Giovanni Carlo Gavotti, to whom it was delivered it prior to Reni painting the finishing touches, on the agreement that it would not be shown in public before it received its final refinements. The Abbot, however, broke their agreement and not only asked Simone Scarselli to draw a print after the painting (cfr. F. Candi D’après le Guide. Incisioni seicentesche da Guido Reni, presentation D. Benati, Bologna 2016, p. 270, n. 141), but he also included it in an exhibition of paintings which the aristocratic families of Bologna regularly organised in the city porticoes to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Eucharist in each city parish. Angered by the discourtesy, Reni promptly set to work on a second version of the painting, which according to a practice that he usually employed, Reni worked on a copy he had already had prepared by his pupil, the Veronese Antonio Giarola, who had completed it with the variant of the crown that Fortune holds in place of the purse. In 1639 Luca Assarino saw this second painting in Guido Reni’s studio and was to subsequently write about it (cfr. L. Assarino, Sensi di umiltà e di stupor intorno la grandezza dell’Eminentissimo Cardinale Sacchetti, e le pitture di Guido Reni, Genoa 1646). However, it was Monsignor Jacopo Altoviti, probably when passing through Bologna to visit his cousin Cardinal Sacchetti, legate of Bologna from 1637 to 1640, who purchased this second version of the painting and took it with him to Florence, where it was seen by Filippo Baldinucci, who was inclined to judge this second version, although only partially autograph, as ‘d’assai maggior pregio di quello del Gavotti’ [‘of far greater quality than that belonging to Gavotti’].

The painting ‘with the crown’ is almost certainly to be identified with the work now conserved in the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (cfr. L. Cibrario, F. Jatta ‘‘Allegoria della Fortuna’ di Guido Reni’ in P. Baldi, L. Cibrario, F. Jatta, Aperto per restauro. Il restauro di Venere e Amore del Guercino e dell’allegoria della Fortuna di Guido Reni, Rome 2015, pp. 55-71). Further information concerning the first version ‘with a purse’ comes from the Felsina Pittrice by Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1678), according to whom, although being unfinished (‘non finito ancora’) it was sold by the Abbot Gavotti who earned twice the price he had originally paid Reni for it: that is six hundred scudi (‘cioè seicento scudi’). The version still recorded in the nineteenth century at Palazzo Gavotti, Genoa, was almost certainly a copy commissioned by Gavotti at the time of this successful sale (cfr. F. Alizeri, Guida artistica per la città di Genova, Genoa 1846, II, p. 641). Testifying to the composition’s fame, other than the engraving already mentioned by Scarselli, and the considerably altered woodcut by Bartolomeo Coriolano, there were numerous studio copies made. In 1924, for example, a version that had formerly belonged to the Sacchetti collection in Rome entered the Vatican collections; in the Sacchetti inventories this had first been said to be by Elisabetta Siriani (1638-1665) and was later referred to Giovanni Francesco Gessi, or to Reni’s own studio. Before the re-appearance of the painting under discussion here, the Vatican painting was traditionally considered autograph and identified as the one executed by Reni for Gavotti (see D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni. L’opera completa, Turin 1988, n. 158, fig. 148).

The present painting comes from the important Benadduci collection in Tolentino, which was rich in works by Bolognese painters (notably Reni and Guercino). These were mostly acquired by Count Benadduce Benadduci (d. 1643), who from 1638 held the post of Uditore di Torrone in Bologna. As Pepper and Mahon suggested, it is highly likely that it was Benadduci himself who bought the painting from Abbot Gavotti. The provincial location of the Benadduci collection ensured that this magnificent canvas, which was only known to local scholars (Benadduci 1886), was never seriously taken into consideration by Reni students (cfr. C. Garboli, E. Baccheschi, L’opera complete di Guido Reni, Milan 1971, n. 117b (as studio); A Busiri Vici ‘Contributi per ‘La Fortuna’ di Guido Reni’ in Studi di Storia dell’arte in onore di Antonio Morassi, Rome 1971, p. 232; D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni… cit, p. 287, n.1; it is notable that before Pepper and Mahon’s 1999 article resolved the matter finally, R. Petrangolini Benedetti Panici (1976) had sustained the painting’s status as an autograph Reni).

Provenance:
Abbot Giovanni Carlo Gavotti, Bologna, circa 1635;
Benadduce Benadduci, Tolentino, circa 1638;
thence by descent to Olimpia Benadduci, circa 1750;
thence by descent to Stefano Gentiloni, Tolentino, 1925;
thence by descent to the Gentiloni family, Palazzo Silveri Gentiloni, Tolentino;
Private European collection;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 15 October 2013, lot 595;
where acquired by the present owner;
Private collection, Belgium

Literature:
C. C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, Bologna 1678, ed. Bologna 1841, I, pp. 96-97, II, pp. 24, 31, 320;
F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, Florence 1681-1774, V, 1702, pp. 327-328 (ed. Florence 1812, X, pp. 341-342);
G. Benadduci, Cenni Biografici sul Benadduce Benadduci e memorie sui dipinti da lui allogati al Guercino ed a Guido Reni, Tolentino 1886, pp. 20-21;
R. Petrangolini Benedetti Panici, La Fortuna di Guido Reni in: Notizie da Palazzo Albani, X, 1976, n. 2, pp. 56-57;
D. S. Pepper/D. Mahon, Guido Reni’s Fortuna with Purse rediscovered, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXLI, 1999, pp. 156-163;
C. Cropper/L. Pericolo, Felsina Pittrice: The Lives of the Bolognese Painters. Vol. IX: Life of Guido Reni, Brepols Publishers 2018 (forthcoming publication)

We are grateful to Danile Benati, Erich Schleier and Nicholas Turner for all independently confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

We are also grateful to Lorenzo Pericolo for also independently confirming the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original. This painting will be included in his forthcoming publication on the life of Guido Reni (see literature).

The personification of Fortune, covered only by a lightly fluttering pink drape, glides over the globe, holding a palm frond and a sceptre in her left hand while with her right she scatters coins and gems from a purse. A putto in flight representing Chance (Kairòs in Greek, Occasio in Latin) holds her back by her hair. This iconography of Fortune conforms to the medieval tradition, which following the example of antique images representing the protagonist on a wheel, allusive to the changing character of her action, while the presence of Chance or Opportunity suggests the contrary notion of unstable influences in human affairs.

The present painting is an entirely autograph work by Guido Reni. It is a work of exceptional importance not only on account of its composition, which being especially pleasing, was immediately well received, but also for the extraordinarily high quality of the painting, as well as the extremely prestigious collection history of the present work.

The research of D. Stephen Pepper and Denis Mahon published in 1999 (see literature) has shed considerable light on the picture’s history. They were able to reconstruct the circumstances of the commission of this painting, as well as its subsequent ownership history, thereby clarifying a situation that had been made complex owing to the information related to another version of the subject made in the studio of Guido Reni, in which the figure of Fortune is represented holding a crown rather than a purse.

According to Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ professori del disegno (1702), Guido Reni painted the present version, in which Fortune holds a purse, for the Bolognese Abbot Giovanni Carlo Gavotti, to whom it was delivered it prior to Reni painting the finishing touches, on the agreement that it would not be shown in public before it received its final refinements. The Abbot, however, broke their agreement and not only asked Simone Scarselli to draw a print after the painting (cfr. F. Candi D’après le Guide. Incisioni seicentesche da Guido Reni, presentation D. Benati, Bologna 2016, p. 270, n. 141), but he also included it in an exhibition of paintings which the aristocratic families of Bologna regularly organised in the city porticoes to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Eucharist in each city parish. Angered by the discourtesy, Reni promptly set to work on a second version of the painting, which according to a practice that he usually employed, Reni worked on a copy he had already had prepared by his pupil, the Veronese Antonio Giarola, who had completed it with the variant of the crown that Fortune holds in place of the purse. In 1639 Luca Assarino saw this second painting in Guido Reni’s studio and was to subsequently write about it (cfr. L. Assarino, Sensi di umiltà e di stupor intorno la grandezza dell’Eminentissimo Cardinale Sacchetti, e le pitture di Guido Reni, Genoa 1646). However, it was Monsignor Jacopo Altoviti, probably when passing through Bologna to visit his cousin Cardinal Sacchetti, legate of Bologna from 1637 to 1640, who purchased this second version of the painting and took it with him to Florence, where it was seen by Filippo Baldinucci, who was inclined to judge this second version, although only partially autograph, as ‘d’assai maggior pregio di quello del Gavotti’ [‘of far greater quality than that belonging to Gavotti’].

The painting ‘with the crown’ is almost certainly to be identified with the work now conserved in the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (cfr. L. Cibrario, F. Jatta ‘‘Allegoria della Fortuna’ di Guido Reni’ in P. Baldi, L. Cibrario, F. Jatta, Aperto per restauro. Il restauro di Venere e Amore del Guercino e dell’allegoria della Fortuna di Guido Reni, Rome 2015, pp. 55-71). Further information concerning the first version ‘with a purse’ comes from the Felsina Pittrice by Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1678), according to whom, although being unfinished (‘non finito ancora’) it was sold by the Abbot Gavotti who earned twice the price he had originally paid Reni for it: that is six hundred scudi (‘cioè seicento scudi’). The version still recorded in the nineteenth century at Palazzo Gavotti, Genoa, was almost certainly a copy commissioned by Gavotti at the time of this successful sale (cfr. F. Alizeri, Guida artistica per la città di Genova, Genoa 1846, II, p. 641). Testifying to the composition’s fame, other than the engraving already mentioned by Scarselli, and the considerably altered woodcut by Bartolomeo Coriolano, there were numerous studio copies made. In 1924, for example, a version that had formerly belonged to the Sacchetti collection in Rome entered the Vatican collections; in the Sacchetti inventories this had first been said to be by Elisabetta Siriani (1638-1665) and was later referred to Giovanni Francesco Gessi, or to Reni’s own studio. Before the re-appearance of the painting under discussion here, the Vatican painting was traditionally considered autograph and identified as the one executed by Reni for Gavotti (see D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni. L’opera completa, Turin 1988, n. 158, fig. 148).

The present painting comes from the important Benadduci collection in Tolentino, which was rich in works by Bolognese painters (notably Reni and Guercino). These were mostly acquired by Count Benadduce Benadduci (d. 1643), who from 1638 held the post of Uditore di Torrone in Bologna. As Pepper and Mahon suggested, it is highly likely that it was Benadduci himself who bought the painting from Abbot Gavotti. The provincial location of the Benadduci collection ensured that this magnificent canvas, which was only known to local scholars (Benadduci 1886), was never seriously taken into consideration by Reni students (cfr. C. Garboli, E. Baccheschi, L’opera complete di Guido Reni, Milan 1971, n. 117b (as studio); A Busiri Vici ‘Contributi per ‘La Fortuna’ di Guido Reni’ in Studi di Storia dell’arte in onore di Antonio Morassi, Rome 1971, p. 232; D. S. Pepper, Guido Reni… cit, p. 287, n.1; it is notable that before Pepper and Mahon’s 1999 article resolved the matter finally, R. Petrangolini Benedetti Panici (1976) had sustained the painting’s status as an autograph Reni).