Northwick collection (see cat. 58, Bearded Monk, for likely owners prior to 1919); their sale, Sotheby’s, London, November 18, 1919, lots 1–120, or November 1, 1920, lots 3–28 and 93–98; William Bateson, stamp (L. 2604a) recto, lower right, in black; his sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 23, 1929, first sheet of lot 58; where acquired by E. Parsons & Sons, London; purchased from Parsons in 1929 (see inscription) by Dan Fellows Platt, stamps (L. 750a and 2066b) verso, lower left, in blue.;
\r\nHandwritten note: “Study for painting A(?) 1636 for S. Martino in Siena.;
","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"This study relates to an important commission that Guercino received in 1635 from the church of San Martino in Siena. It is one of four radically different composition sketches, all of which differ from the final, vertical altarpiece (due to its damaged condition, this work is more legible in a contemporary copy by one of Guercino’s followers). Brainstorming across the sheet of paper, Guercino dashed off strokes of ink and splashes of wash for this version of the scene, which contrasts the yielding body and delicate facial features of the suffering saint with the tough stances and shadowy profiles of the two torturers who are flaying him alive. A dramatic pentimento, or change, reveals the artist considering alternative placements for Bartholomew’s head. ","remarks":"Italian Drawings"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"\r\nOne of Christ’s twelve apostles, Saint Bartholomew was flayed alive and then crucified for refusing to worship idols during a missionary trip to Armenia. In this exploratory sketch for an altarpiece in Siena, Guercino exploited economical means for maximum expression, combining elegant yet robust contours with subtly varied washes to convey the violent scene. At center, Bartholomew’s yielding body and delicate facial features contrast with the tough stances and shadowy profiles of his two torturers. A dramatic pentimento, or change, reveals that the artist considered alternative placements for Bartholomew’s head. ","remarks":"K1-3 Gallery Rotation"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nBorn in Cento, a small town near Ferrara in northern Italy, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was nicknamed Guercino because he was guercio, or cross-eyed. Largely self-taught, he was deeply influenced by the innovative naturalism of the Bolognese painter Ludovico Carracci, onto which he grafted a vibrant chiaroscuro, emotional intensity, and inventive narrative that made him one of the most appealing and influential Italian Baroque artists. A brilliant and versatile draftsman, he produced thousands of studies for his religious and mythological painting commissions throughout his long and successful career, most of which he spent in Cento and Bologna after a short stay in Rome in 1621–23. In addition, he made informal sketches of landscapes, genre scenes, and caricatures for his own pleasure or to share with friends. Thanks to the astute purchases of Dan Fellows Platt and Frank Jewett Mather Jr. at a time when Baroque art was out of favor, the Museum’s collection of drawings by Guercino and his school is the most extensive in North America.\r\nThese two pen and wash sketches beautifully exemplify how Guercino exploits economical means for maximum expression, combining elegant yet robust contours with subtly varied washes to convey the essence of the subject matter with dramatic lighting and spatial effects. The horizontal composition study for the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1635–36, San Martino, Siena) is one of four radically different conceptions of the central motif, all of which differ from the final, vertical altarpiece. Using the sheet of paper as a stage for brainstorming, Guercino dashes off strokes of ink and splashes of wash for this conception of the scene, which contrasts the yielding body and delicate facial features of the suffering saint with the tough stances and shadowy profiles of the two torturers who are flaying him alive.\r\nTurning from the horrific to the comical in the Boy with a Large Hat, Guercino employs his minimalist technique to caricatural effect. Spare contours underscore the boy’s compact build, while the single curve of dark wash casts a deep shadow that echoes the exaggerated width of his squashed hat and moon-like face. This sketch, which reveals Guercino’s keen and compassionate observation of humanity, belongs to a small album of the artist’s caricatures and genre portraits that was once owned by the eighteenth-century British painter Joshua Reynolds, and is now one of the Museum’s treasures. ","remarks":"see x1948-1294 "}],"media":[{"id":110988,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/x1948-734_1","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"PUAM photo"}],"hasimage":"true","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 324","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014).","citation":"Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 146, cat. no. 60; p. 147 (illus.)","date":2014,"id":1855,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/869726410"},{"boilertext":"Nicholas Turner and Carol Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British collections: with an appendix describing the drawings by Guercino, his school and his followers in the British Museum, (London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press in association with Leonardo-De Luca Editori, 1991).","citation":"Nicholas Turner and Carol Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British collections: with an appendix describing the drawings by Guercino, his school and his followers in the British Museum, (London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press in association with Leonardo-De Luca Editori, 1991)., p. 136-137, under cat. no. 110","date":1991,"id":702,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/24695123"},{"boilertext":"Luigi Salerno, I Dipinti del Guercino, (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1988).","citation":"Luigi Salerno, I Dipinti del Guercino, (Rome: Ugo Bozzi Editore, 1988)., p. 247, under no. 158","date":1988,"id":703,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/473851331"},{"boilertext":"Prisco Bagni, Diane De Grazia, Denis Mahon, Fausto Gozzi and Andrea Emiliani, Il Guercino, 1591-1666: Giovanni Francesco Barbieri: Bologna, Museo civico archeologico, Cento, Pinacoteca civica e Chiesa del Rosario, 6 settembre-10 novembre 1991, (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991).","citation":"Prisco Bagni, Diane De Grazia, Denis Mahon, Fausto Gozzi and Andrea Emiliani, Il Guercino, 1591-1666: Giovanni Francesco Barbieri: Bologna, Museo civico archeologico, Cento, Pinacoteca civica e Chiesa del Rosario, 6 settembre-10 novembre 1991, (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991)., cat. no. 90, p. 146-147 (illus.)","date":1991,"id":706,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/25066003"},{"boilertext":"Julian Brooks, Guercino: mind to paper, (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006).","citation":"Julian Brooks, Guercino: mind to paper, (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006)., p. 61, under no. 18","date":2006,"id":709,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/67978835"},{"boilertext":"Jean K. Westin, Transformations of the Roman Baroque, (Gainesville, FL: University Gallery, College of Fine Arts, University of Florida, 1981).","citation":"Jean K. Westin, Transformations of the Roman Baroque, (Gainesville, FL: University Gallery, College of Fine Arts, University of Florida, 1981)., cat. no. 2 (illus.)","date":1981,"id":710,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/886713199"},{"boilertext":"Diane De Grazia, Guercino drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University, March ll through April 6, 1969, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, 1969).","citation":"Diane De Grazia, Guercino drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University, March ll through April 6, 1969, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, 1969)., no. 14","date":1969,"id":5467,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/620775"},{"boilertext":"Renato Roli, G.F. Barbieri, Guercino, (Milano: A. Martello, 1972).","citation":"Renato Roli, G.F. Barbieri, Guercino, (Milano: A. Martello, 1972)., cat. no. 54, p. 30-31, pl. 54","date":1972,"id":5470,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/816289"},{"boilertext":"H.R.H., \"The Art Museum at Princeton University: a selection from the collections\", Art Journal 26, no. 2 (Winter, 1966-1967): p. 172+174+176+178.","citation":"H.R.H., \"The Art Museum at Princeton University: a selection from the collections\", Art Journal 26, no. 2 (Winter, 1966-1967): p. 172+174+176+178., p. 178, fig. 14","date":1966,"id":3404,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/775045"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 272 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"},{"boilertext":"Jacob Bean, Italian drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University; 106 selected examples, (New York: October House, 1966).","citation":"Jacob Bean, Italian drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University; 106 selected examples, (New York: October House, 1966)., no. 40","date":1966,"id":691,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/686041"},{"boilertext":"David Stone, Guercino, master draftsman: works from North American collections, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museum; Bologna, Italy: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991).","citation":"David Stone, Guercino, master draftsman: works from North American collections, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museum; Bologna, Italy: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991)., 217","date":1991,"id":698,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/23954555"},{"boilertext":"Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).","citation":"Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: pp. 102-103, no. 272 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)","date":1977,"id":263,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/2136968"},{"boilertext":"Barbara T. Ross, \"A prime teaching collection at Princeton: The Platt and Mather drawings,\" Master Drawings 38, no. 3 (Autumn, 2000): p. 303-310.","citation":"Barbara T. 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