(Bologna 1575–1642)
The Adoration of the Shepherds,
oil on copper, 48 x 38 cm, framed

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for confirming the attribution of the present painting after examination in the original (written communication).

The identification of this important new addition to the oeuvre of Guido Reni was first confirmed by the late Sir Denis Mahon (verbal communication 2002). Mahon connected the present composition with Reni’s altarpiece in the Certosa di San Martino, Naples, which is usually dated c. 16401. He thought that the copper dated to sometime between Reni’s completion of the Naples altarpiece and 1642, the year of the painter’s death, a conclusion supported by the fact that it is a reduced variant of the Naples altarpiece, albeit with significantly fewer figures and in much altered poses.

Although the copper was painted late in Reni’s career, he took inspiration from a much earlier composition, Domenichino’s Adoration of the Shepherds (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) which is generally dated 1607-08 and which is thought to be based on a lost painting by Annibale Carracci2. Many elements of Domenichino’s composition reappear here, including the strongly lit group of the Madonna and Child placed at the centre of the composition, the boy playing bagpipe to one side and the huddle of curious spectators to the right peering incredulously at the Christ Child.

Reni had no qualms about exploiting the success of the Certosa altarpiece. Apart from the present copper, he made a number of spin-offs based on its composition, in which both the figures and their background setting were re-shuffled and modified3. This is the only one of these spin-offs to show the Christ Child suckling his mother. The best known, in the National Gallery, London, is painted to the same grand scale as its prototype4. The present copper owes most to the London painting in the conception of the two cherubs – in their luminosity, pose and slightly elongated form – recalling their six counterparts in the London painting rather more than the four putti and two child angels in the Naples picture.

The newly discovered Adoration of the Shepherds must be among the last, if not the very last, of Reni’s paintings on copper to have survived. He had frequently used this support early in his career in his small-sized, exquisitely wrought cabinet pictures, which are characterized by their wide colour range, brilliant lighting and miniature, elegantly postured figures set within intricate composition. By the last decade of so of Reni’s life – as his brushstroke became looser, his colours more pastel like and his glazes thinner and more transparent – he seems to have more or less abandoned painting on copper, working instead almost exclusively on canvas.

Renis late handling is seen clearly in the Adoration of the Shepherds, on copper, despite its small scale, for example in the broad touch throughout (so different from the finish of his paintings on copper in the ten years or so following his first visit to Rome); the beautifully improvised brushwork, as in the passage suggesting the spiky texture of straw covering the crib on which the Christ Child lies; and the subtlety of the range of light tones in the glowing flesh of the suckling Christ Child and the two flying putti, an effect which the painter achieved by delicate modeling with the point of the brush, including hatching, in which Reni was master. The picture contains an important pentimento. Originally only one putto appeared at the top of the composition – that to the right of the pair – holding forward a scroll in both hands, instead of sharing the task with his companion, as in the finished work. As first painted, the upper arm of the right-hand putto may be seen through the chest and shoulder of the other; and as first conceived, the scroll makes an sweep from the right-hand putto’s left hand, upwards to the left, touching the forward edge of the billowing drapery of the other putto and continuing through his right upper arm to meet with the painted-over right hand, just visible at the bottom of the left-hand putto’s wing. As for adjustments in outline and slight modifications to the position of the limbs of the different figures, these are present throughout the copper and are final testimony if any further were needed, of the hand of the master, ever on the look-out for the most harmonious arrangement of his figures. Only a few of these adjustments may be singled out here, for example the right knee of the shepherd holding the lamb who kneels immediately to the right of the crib; the nose of the bearded shepherd with a stick kneeling immediately behind him; and the left elbow and wrist of the boy seated in the lower right corner.

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

1 S. Pepper, Guido Reni, l’opera completea Novara, 1988, p. 301, cat. no. 194, fig. 181

2 R. Spear, Domenichino, Yale University Press, 1982, cat. no. 30, and fig. 48
3 A painting of upright format in the National Gallery, London (Pepper, 1988, cat. no. 195, fig. 182); an octagonal canvas in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow (Pepper, 1988, cat. no. 182, fig. 169), of which many copies are recorded; and a little studied canvas in the deposits of the Galleria Brera, Milan (E. Baccheschi, L’opera completa di Guido Reni, Milan, 1971, p. 114, 201 d, the illustration wrongly captioned 201 c).
4 National Gallery, London (Pepper, 1988, cat. no. 195, fig. 182)

Nicholas Turner has reconfirmed the attribution to Guido Reni (Bologna 1575–1642).
Professor Richard Spear does not accept the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph.