(Calvenzano di Vergato 1575 – Bologna 1642)
The Madonna Praying, oil on canvas, 83 x 68 cm, framed

Provenance: Bigetti Collection, Rome, 1988; European Private Collection.

Literature: S. Pepper, Guido Reni, L’opera completa, Novara 1988, cat. 187, p. 300

We are grateful to Daniele Benati (written communication of 21 Jan. 2010) and Emilio Negro (oral communication) for both independently fully endorsing the attribution of the present painting to Guido Reni.

The compositions of Guido Reni, one of the most successful artists of the 17th Century, enjoyed widespread fame and were disseminated in the form of autograph versions, workshop replicas, copies, and copper engravings (see R. E. Spear, The Divine Guido: Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido Reni, New Haven, 1997, p. 69).

The autograph version and workshop replicas of the present composition include a painting in the Uffizi in Florence (Inv. N.795), which today is considered a copy and appears in Zoffany’s Tribuna degli Uffizi. One autograph version is preserved in a private collection in Rome (see S. Pepper, Guido Reni, L’opera completa, Novara 1988, p. 300, no. 187, fig. 174), while another version, which was only recently discovered, was sold at Sotheby’s in Milan (8 June 2010, lot 22). The present composition of the Madonna Praying was disseminated in the form of several copper engravings, one of which was produced by D. Cunego and dates from 1776; it is inscribed ‘Mater amabilis, ex tabula in aedibus Bolognetti’. A further copper engraving dating from 1778 was made by R. Petrucci and G. D. Picchianti and was based on a version from the collection of Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The existence of multiple copper engravings after a work by Guido Reni is not surprising, since the Bolognese painter, thanks to his extraordinary sense of harmony and colours, found great approval among art lovers during the 18th Century, his work reflecting the aesthetic understanding of the time. In his classical academism and striving for absolute perfection, he was compared to Raphael; it was in the 18th Century that Guido Reni was truely raised to the greatest and highest artistic ranks.

Provenance: Bigetti Collection, Rome, 1988; European Private Collection. Literature: S. Pepper, Guido Reni, L’opera completa, Novara 1988, cat. 187, p. 300 We are grateful to Daniele Benati (written communication of 21 Jan. 2010) and Emilio Negro (oral