Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)

Nicholas Turner suggested at the time of the sale in 2000 that this finely-detailed red-chalk drawing should be dated to the late 1630s or early 1640s, at which time Guercino executed a number of half-length pictures of Saint Jerome, according to entries in his Libro dei Conti. The saint's twisting pose and the powerful treatment of the musculature of his arm are similar to a drawing at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, which was identified by David Stone as a study of Saint Jerome and the Angel, and dated on the basis of its style to circa 1641 (inv. 1968.67; Guercino: Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Harvard, University Art Museums, and elsewhere, 1991, no. 45).