Saint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ Child

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)

1591–1666 · Red chalk · Drawings and Prints

The style of this drawing is comparable to that of other autograph sheets in red chalk from Guercino's late period, such as that for a painting of 1661, St. Theresa Receiving a Necklace from the Virgin, in the Presence of St. Joseph, her Patron (Mahon and Ekserdjian, 1986, cat. no. 36). This drawing features carefully finished drapery with few pentimenti or loose outlines. Cupid Spurning Riches, a study for a painting of 1654-55 (Royal Library, Windsor, inv. no. 2708) [Mahon and Turner, 1989, cat. no. 129) features an infant with closely similar physiognomy and some parallel hatching for conception of the figure in space. There exists a red chalk study of the same subject (Royal Library, Windsor, inv. no. 2572), but featuring a different composition that is unconnected with a known or documented project. It is considered by Mahon and Turner to be a School drawing from which a now lost etching by Francesco Bartolozzi was published in Rome in 1764.

Artist

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)

Date

1591–1666

Medium

Red chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880