(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Caritas Romana,
oil on canvas, 31.5 x 24 cm, framed

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for confirming the attribution of the present painting.

This work is a bozzetto for Guercino’s larger, horizontal canvas of
Roman Charity in the Schoeppler collection, London, painted in 1638–39 for Cornelio II Bentivoglio. This painting also relates to lot 401 in this sale.

The bozzetto’s main function was probably to give the patron an idea of the appearance of the final picture, but it also enabled Guercino to clarify his own thoughts on the design of the picture. In nearly all the preparatory drawings, the arrangement presupposes a vertical rather than a horizontal composition, which culminates naturally in this bozzetto. As a declaration in advance of the painter’s intentions, however, the bozzetto could well have prompted the change in axis of the subject from a vertical to a horizontal format, a modification which, according to Turner seems more likely to have been at the patron’s initiative, rather than Guercino’s.

The patron, Cornelio, made his down payment to Guercino of 55 scudi on 8 September 1638 (see Libro dei Conti, ed. by Ghelfi, 1997, pp. 93 and 98-99, nos. 179 and 204). When the balance of 66 scudi was paid on 23 August 1639, the subject is specified as a ‘Carità Romana’.

This bozzetto has many beautifully painted passages and details that
are meticulously rendered, which according to Turner are in a style
compatible with the artist’s late second Cento period. Guercino’s
bozzetti for his larger-sized finished pictures are rare. Another
notable example was Guercino’s bozzetto for The Risen Christ, sold at Dorotheum, Vienna, 17 October 2017, lot 83.