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

Finely executed with characteristically looping ink lines and tight hatching in its darker areas, the sheet can be dated to the mid-1630s and, as proposed by Nicholas Turner, may be a preparatory study for the angel and putto resting on clouds featured at the top of Guercino’s painting The Penitent Magdalen (The Paintings of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue Raisonné, Rome, 2017, no. 228, ill.). Now destroyed and known only through copies, the painting was executed around 1637 for Martino Barbieri and installed in the Carpi cathedral. Nicholas Turner confirmed the attribution of the drawing to the previous owners.