(Cento 1591–1666 Bologna)
Saint Romuald,
oil on canvas, 74 x 61 cm, framed

Provenance:
Benadduci collection, Tolentino;
thence by descent to the present owner

We are grateful to Nicholas Turner for confirming the attribution after inspection of the original and for his assistance in cataloguing the present painting.

This previously unknown canvas is a study, apparently to scale, for the head and shoulders of the saint in Guercino’s altarpiece of Saint Romuald, painted in 1640–41 for the Benedictine fathers of San Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna, and now in the Pinacoteca Comunale of that city (L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome 1988, no. 193, repr.; N. Turner, The painting of Guercino. A Revised and Expanded Catalogue raisonné, Rome 2017, no. 269, repr.).

Saint Romuald (circa AD 951 – circa 1025/7) was a native of Ravenna, and it was there that he entered the monastery of San Apollinare, eventually becoming its abbot.

The rapidly painted head corresponds closely in pose and lighting to the equivalent figure in the altarpiece, but with two significant differences. One is the saint’s right hand resting on the saint’s breast, rather than outflung to the side, and the other is the loose-fitting habit that he wears in the sketch, which bunches up over his right fore-arm, rather than the more official cope habitually worn for public appearances seen in the altarpiece. The paint is thinly and sparingly applied, but with the odd touches of impasto in the highlights, for example in the hand. The dark canvas preparation has been cleverly marshalled to act as both shadow and mid-tone, for example in the saint’s beard and left shoulder, where only an occasional brushstroke may be found.

From the outset of his career, Guercino made studies for the heads of the principal figures in his paintings, usually as drawings, mostly in red chalk or pen and brown ink. Such a head study for the Saint Romuald, in pen, survives in the British Museum, London, but shows the saint turned to the right, not the left (London 1991, App. no. 46, repr.). A lost red chalk study of the saint kneeling whole length, sold at Gilhofer und Ranschburg, Vienna (11–12 May 1917, lot 200, repr.) also represents the figure facing right. The head in the British Museum drawing closely resembles that of the saint in the ex-Vienna drawing. Moreover, in the British Museum picture the semicircular contour of the stole worn by the saint and in the ex-Vienna drawing may be partly seen at his shoulders.

Oil sketches by Guercino for the heads of his painted figures, such as the present painting, are rare. A handful have been identified from the earlier part of his career. The only other example of such a work from his mature period is that of the Head of Saint James the Greater, datable to 1650–51, in the Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University, long dismissed as a copy (Turner 2017, no. 394.I). It is, however, a study, with slight differences, including in the angle of the staff held over the saint’s left shoulder, for the picture of Saint James the Greater, who is shown seated full-length, in a private collection, Vienna (Salerno, Ibid., 1988, no. 279, repr.; Turner 2017, no. 394.II, repr.). The Baylor University canvas is less sketchy than the present picture and there are fewer differences to its finished counterpart.