drawing
- Museum number
- 1847,0306.10
- Description
-
St Gregory; head and shoulders slightly to right, looking to front
Red chalk
Turner and Plazzotta 1991
He is seen head and shoulders, with his head turned slightly to the right, but with his eyes directed towards the spectator; he wears a camauro on his head and a cope on his shoulders.
- Production date
- 1625 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 237 millimetres
-
Width: 200 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Turner and Plazzotta 1991
The style suggests the period between Guercino's Roman visit of 1621-3 and his work on the Piacenza frescoes of 1626-7. The stumping in the cope is particularly reminiscent of this phase in the development of the artist's red chalk studies. Such passages are to be found in the sheet of studies of putti in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle (Mahon & Turner, 1989, no. 35; see Turner and Plazzotta 1991, cat. no. 53) for the painting of 'St Gregory the Great with Sts Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier' of c. 1625-6 in the collection of Sir Denis Mahon, London (Salerno, 1988, no. 112). The head is not altogether unlike that of St Gregory in that picture, in spite of the difference of pose. Indeed the British Museum drawing could conceivably be a rejected study for the picture.
Literature: Mahon and Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989; Salerno, I Dipinti del Guercino, Rome 1988.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1847
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1847,0306.10