Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

San Juan Evangelista [Saint John the Evangelist]

Image caption
GIAN FRANCESCO BARBIERI (IL GUERCINO)  (Copy)

San Juan Evangelista [Saint John the Evangelist]

  • c. 1623
  • Oil on canvas
  • 108 x 140 cm
  • Cat. P_106
  • Acquired in 1975
By:
Isabel Tejeda

The Banco de España Collection holds two copies of a series painted by Il Guercino on the four Evangelists. Italian historian Stefano Bottari reconstructed the series in his article Una serie di Evangelisti del Guercino, based on two canvases held in a private collection in Vicenza (Saint John and Saint Mark), adding two more located at the National Gallery in Rome (Saint Luke and Saint Matthew). When the reconstruction of the series was mooted, Bottari assumed that these were the works painted by Il Guercino for Domenico Fabri in 1623, as stated by Malvasia.

Il Guercino's powerful inventiveness and the balance between his youthful strength (steeped in northern Italian pictorial tradition) and classical experience (gained during his months in Rome) shine through in the originals.

The paintings in the Banco de España are copies, but their quality is still excellent. They were acquired by the Bank in 1975. In 1972 they were offered to the Prado, where they were examined in the workshops and judged to be old copies.

The appearance of these twin paintings confirms Bottari's intuition: the original of Saint John belongs to one collection and that of Saint Matthew to another. These two copies (and those of the other two Evangelists, which surely exist somewhere) were produced before the original series was broken up.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Gian Francesco Barbieri (Il Guercino)
Cento 1591 - Bologna 1666

Gian Francesco Barbieri, known as Il Guercino, was born in Cento, a small town between Ferrara and Bologna in the Emilia region of Italy. He was educated in his home town but later travelled to Venice and Mantua and found inspiration in the poetic ambience of Ferrara, with its strong contrasts between light and shade and its dramatic tension.

From 1617 to 1618 he worked in the service of the Ludovisi family in Bologna, and then moved to Rome when Alessandro Ludovisi became Pope Gregory XV in 1621. There, he produced a number of works considered as essential in the subsequent evolution of the Baroque style (Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi). At the same time Monsignor Aguchi, Secretary to the Pope, pressured him to work in a highly classical style, He can thus be seen as a transitional artist in the onset of new forms of painting in the 17th century. On the death of Gregory XV he returned to Cento, where his style grew increasingly severe, showing more and more complacency in composition and colour but retaining its subtlety and refinement. When Guido Reni died in 1642, Barbieri moved to Bologna, where he became an influential member of the Bolognese school. He died there in 1666.

His soubriquet derives from the fact that he was cross-eyed (guercio in Italian).

Isabel Tejeda

 
 
Carlo Cesare Malvasia Felsina Pittrice, Bologne, Tipografia Guidi all´Ancora, 1841. Stefano Bottari Arte Antica e Moderna, «Una serie di Evangelisti del Guercino», Siena, Università degli Studi di Siena, 1958, nº 1. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez & Julián Gállego Banco de España. Colección de pintura, Madrid, Banco de España, 1985. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Julián Gállego & María José Alonso Colección de pintura del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1988. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 1.