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

A study for Guercino's painting of The Death of Cleopatra now in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa (L. Salerno, Il Dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, no. 252). It is almost certainly the 'Quadro di Cleopatra' for which Guercino's account books record that the Abbate Carlo Emanuele Durazzo on 24 March 1648 paid 125 ducatoni (B. Ghelfi, op. cit., p. 138, no. 387). Guercino painted another version of the subject, now lost, for which he was paid on 8 March 1650 (B. Ghelfi, op. cit., p. 146, no. 420). Although there are small differences between the drawing and the picture, Sir Denis Mahon considers the drawing preparatory for the 1648 picture rather than that of 1650 (D. Mahon, op. cit., p. 213).
Another drawing of the subject, in pen and brown ink, was in the Stichting Collectie P. en N. de Boer, Christie's, London, 4 July 1995, lot 55 (C. van Tuyll, op. cit., no. 54).