Live Auction 15774Old Master & British Drawings & Watercolours
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)
Lot 17

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

A seated woman in profile

Closed3 July 2018

Price Realised

GBP 6,250

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Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino (Cento 1591-1666 Bologna)
A seated woman in profile
pen and brown ink, brown wash
9 x 6¾ in. (22.7 x 17.1 cm)

By descent in the family of the artist's nephews Carlo and Benedetto Gennari, Bologna, until after 1719.
probably Francesco Forni, Bologna.
John Bouverie (circa 1723-50) (on his so-called 'Casa Gennari mount', L. 2858c), and by descent to his sister
Anne Bouverie (d. 1757), to her husband
John Hervey (d. 1764), to their son
Christopher Hervey (d. 1786), to his aunt Elizabeth Bouverie (d. 1798), surviving sister of John Bouverie, to
Sir Charles Middleton, later 1st Baron Barham (1726-1813), husband of Elizabeth Bouverie's childhood friend Margaret Gambier, to his son-in-law
Sir Gerard Noel, 2nd Baron Barham (1759-1838), to his son
Sir Charles Noel, 3rd Baron Barham and later 1st Earl of Gainsborough (1781-1866), and by descent to
The Earl of Gainsborough; Christie's, London, 27 July 1922 (possibly sold in one of the grouped lots).
Anonymous sale; Bonhams, London, 25 October 2017, part of lot 295 (from an album containing sixty drawings).

Specialist note

The mount of this drawing, with its characteristic geometric patterns, was formerly known as the 'Casa Gennari mount' (named after Guercino's heirs, the Gennari). Nicholas Turner, however, has established that the impoverished family of the artist was not responsible for the elaborate mounting, but rather the celebrated collector John Bouverie, who owned hundreds of Guercino drawings (N. Turner, 'John Bouverie as a collector of drawings', The Burlington Magazine, XCCCVI, 1994, no. 1091, pp. 90-9). The seated woman shown in this sheet is rather close to the one, holding a bird in her left hand, which appears in a landscape drawing sold at Christie's, Paris, 21 March 2018, lot 13.