(Cento 1591 – 1666 Bologna)
David and Abigail; King David Handing the Letter to Uriah, oil on canvas, 131 x 135; 130 x 135 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance: Palazzo Durazzo, Genoa (according to Ratti); Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno, Genoa; Private European Collection.

Literature: C. G. Ratti, Instruzione ... di Genova, 1780, pp. 179-80 (as Guercino); P. Torriti, Tesori di strada nuova, Genova, 1971, pp. 202-6 (as Guercino and Bartolomeo Gennari); M. Marini, “Schedario di opere inedite : Giovanni Francesco Barbieri il Guercino (Cento, 1591-Bologna, 1666)”, Ricerche di storia dell’arte, IV, 1977, pp. 128-9, nos. 5 and 6 (as Guercino and collaborators); B. W. Meijer and C. Van Tuyll, Disegni italiani del Teylers Museum Haarlem, exh. cat., Florence, Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell’Arte, 1983, and Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, 1984, p. 132, no. 55 (as Guercino); P. Bagni, Benedetto Gennari e la bottega del Guercino, Bologna, 1986, pp. 222 and figs. 120 and 121 (as Lorenzo Gennari, copying Guercino); L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome, 1988, pp. 208-9, nos. 116-7 (as Lorenzo Gennari, copying Guercino); P. Bagni, Il Guercino e i suoi incisori, Rome, 1988, p. 68, under no. 97 (as Lorenzo Gennari, copying Guercino); D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 25-6, no. 48 (as Lorenzo Gennari, copying Guercino); C. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Guercino (1591-1666): Drawings from Dutch Collections, exh. cat., Teylers Museum, Haarlem, 1991, p. 60 (as Lorenzo Gennari, copying Guercino); D. Mahon, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri il Guercino, 1591-1666, Disegni, exh. cat., Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 1991, p. 103, under no. 62.

We are extremely grateful to Professor Nicholas Turner for fully endorsing the attribution to Guercino, and for his catalogue entry, for the present paintings. Following a recent, careful examination of the above two paintings (the first time I have seen them in the original), I firmly believe them to be retouched originals by Guercino, to whom they were attributed by tradition, and not studio copies after lost works by him, as has been recently claimed. The fact that they have remained virtually invisible in private ownership for many years has contributed to the confusion surrounding their authorship, while their poor condition and many early restorations have made qualitative interpretation hard. When Piero Torriti first published them in 1971, he believed them to be by Guercino himself, explaining away their unevenness of handling as interventions by Bartolomeo Gennari (1594-1661).(1) Torriti’s opinion was seconded by Maurizio Marini in 1977, who again published the pictures, this time attributing them to Guercino and collaborators.(2) When Meijer and van Tuyll wrote about the David and Abigail in 1983, following their discovery of an autograph compositional study for it in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (fig. 1), it did not even occur to them to doubt the picture’s attribution to Guercino.(3) Since then, however, a number of specialists, myself included, have favoured the view, first proposed by Denis Mahon, that the two canvases appear to be copies after putative lost works by Guercino, perhaps by the master’s kinsman Lorenzo Gennari (1595-1665/72).(4) As I wish to show, the opinion that they are studio copies is simply not borne out by the evidence of the pictures themselves, which are now finally available for proper scrutiny and technical examination. The canvases have been reduced at the sides and have suffered surface damage from at least two re-linings of the original supports, an intervention that probably occurred in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Their format must have been changed to allow them to fit better with the re-hanging of a gallery or reception room. Their poor physical state was well discussed by Salerno, who, writing shortly before 1988, observed that old additions that had also been made to the top and bottom, had been recently removed.(5) An early re-lining or re-linings, resulted in the soaking of the old canvas with moisture from the glue. This damping of the support may account for the weakening in definition of the darks (for example, in the hair of several of the figures and in the fur of the donkey), as well as in several losses in the passages of heavy impasto (for example, in the decorated border of Abigail’s dress, in the first canvas, and the jewelry in David’s crown in the second). These losses also explain the presence of retouching throughout, which doubtless also took place when the canvases were reshaped. Finally, the overall effect of both paintings has been impaired by the blanching of a thick varnish, apparently applied as recently as around the middle of the last century. Although the present pair of pictures is not cited in either Malvasia’s list of the painter’s commissions or in the Libro dei Conti (which was started only in 1629), the King David Giving Uriah a Letter is documented in an engraving by Giovanni Battista Pasqualini (fig. 2), dated 1627, in which Guercino is credited as the inventor of the design.(6) The print reverses the composition. It also shows how this extended further above and below, as well as to both sides. The picture’s companion, the David and Abigail, was similarly cut down. A painted copy by the Ferrarese painter Francesco Naselli (d. c. 1630), in S. Cristoforo alla Certosa, Ferrara, shows the composition extending to both sides, with the figure of David complete and the heads of two attendants behind him.(7) A drawing for the composition by Guercino himself, in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, also shows the picture space ranging further to both left and right, though not at the top and bottom.(8) This and two other preparatory drawings for the painting by Guercino, one in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle (fig. 3), and the other formerly in the collection of Lionel Lucas (fig. 4) demonstrate that Guercino was the originator of the composition.(9) There are three main reasons for the view that the present pair of canvases is the work of Guercino and not that of his studio. The first is the high quality of the brushwork in the areas that remain relatively unimpaired by losses and later repaints. In the first canvas, these include Abigail’s pleading eyes, half filled with tears, most of the face of the old bearded attendant standing behind her, as well as some of the highlights in David’s armour, though this has been quite considerably retouched in some passages. In the second canvas, the face and ear of David shows Guercino’s characteristic handling and choice of palette, though these passages have been coarsened by repaints. Only Guercino would have been capable of the clever handling of the dramatically lit faces of Uriah and the attendant, who stands at the table in the centre of the composition. A second reason for giving the two canvases to Guercino is the identification of two significant and very typical pentiments in the David and Abigail, as well as a number of minor corrections in the placement of the figurative elements in both works. Such modifications would not have occurred had the canvases been the work of a studio assistant instructed to make straightforward replicas of a pair of pre-existing paintings by the master. The first pentiment, for the left ear of the ass, is seen in the middle of the canvas, showing through the flesh-coloured paint in the shoulder of Abigail’s attendant. The change indicates that the ears, instead of being aligned, were at one time conceived as making a “V” shape, perhaps accompanying a different position for the head of the animal, looking out more frontally towards the spectator instead of to the side in profile. The second pentiment concerns the alteration to the position of Abigail’s right thumb, which was first painted more vertically, in a position that the artist thought competed too strongly with the brooch at the centre of the pearl-lined border of her bodice. In a second solution, her thumb was slightly lowered. As to the minor modifications and adjustments seen in both paintings, these are mostly present in the rendering of the hands, as well as in the outlines of the heads. X-radiographs and infra-red reflectograms would doubtless reveal more such changes in the lower paint layers. The third reason for believing the two paintings to be by Guercino is simply on the grounds of quality. Although impaired by damage and reworking, the handling of the original paint surface is surely beyond the capabilities of Guercino’s two main helpers of the 1620s, Bartolommeo and Lorenzo Gennari. Guercino returned to the subject of David and Abigail some ten years later, painting in 1635 a vast, multi-figured canvas on the commission of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, which ended up in the collection of the Earls of Bridgewater, at Bridgewater House, London (see lot 379), and was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.(10) Unlike his early David and Abigail, Guercino’s later treatment of the subject was famous in its own day and is richly documented. It is perhaps one of the sad ironies of history that one no longer exists and the other has remained “lost” through critical oversight.

Footnotes: (1) Torriti, 1971, pp. 202-6. (2) Marini, 1977, pp. 128-9, nos. 5 and 6. (3) Meijer and van Tuyll, 1983-4, p. 132, under no. 55. (4) See, for example, Bagni, pp. 222 and figs. 120 and 121; Salerno, 1988, pp. 208-9, nos. 116-7; and Mahon and Turner, 1989, pp. 25-6, no. 48. (5) Salerno, 1988, p. 209, under nos. 116-7. (6) Bagni, 1988, p. 68, no. 97. (7) E. Riccòmini, Il seicento ferrarese, Milan, 1969, p. 30, no. 19. Other copies of the present pair have survived, indicating the success of Guercino’s originals at the time, and have been discussed by Salerno, 1988, pp. 208-9. He reproduced as his no. 116, another copy of the David and Abigail, in a private collection, which, like the Ferrara painting, shows the composition prior to the alterations made to the original canvas; this, too, he was inclined to give to Lorenzo Gennari. Salerno cites no less than three copies after the King David giving Uriah a Letter, one in the Casa degli Oratoriani, S. Filippo, Turin, and two in private collections (1988, p. 209, under no. 117). (8) Haarlem, Teylers Museum: inv. no. H. 47 (Meijer and van Tuyll, 1983-4, p. 132, no. 55; and van Tuyll, 1991, pp. 60-61, no. 16). (9) For a discussion of all three drawings, see Mahon and Turner, 1989, pp. 25-6, under no. 48. (10) Salerno, 1988, p. 250, no. 161.

Provenienz:Palazzo Durazzo, Genua, (laut Ratti); Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno, Genua; Privatsammlung Literatur: C. G. Ratti, Instruzione ... di Genova, 1780, pp. 179-80 (as Guercino); P. Torriti, Tesori di strada nuova, Genova, 1971, pp. 202-6 (as Guercino and