GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, IL GUERCINO (CENTO 1591-1666 BOLOGNA)

This is a study for Guercino’s painting of The Death of Cleopatra now in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa (fig. 1; N. Turner, op. cit., no. 351, ill.). The painting has been identified with the ‘Quadro di Cleopatra’ recorded in Guercino’s account book as having been made for the Abbate Carlo Emanuele Durazzo at a cost of 125 ducatoni on 24 March 1648 (B. Ghelfi, op. cit., p. 138, no. 387, ill.). A few years later Guercino painted another version of the subject for the Genoese nobleman Gerolamo Panesi; that painting is now in a private collection (N. Turner, op. cit., no. 372, ill.). In the second version Cleopatra's pose was altered to lying on her bed. Aside from small differences, the painting in Palazzo Rosso and the present drawing are compositionally identical. Another drawing of the same subject, but in pen and brown ink, was in the Stichting Collectie P. en N. de Boer (C. van Tuyll, op. cit., under no. 54) and was sold in these Rooms on 4 July 1995, lot 55.

Fig. 1. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino, The Death of Cleopatra, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa.