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In this vertical portrait painting, a pale-skinned, bearded man holding a painter’s palette and brushes stands in front of a painting on an easel that shows a chubby child and a slender dog. The man stands in the lower right quadrant of the composition, close to us. Shown from the waist up, his body faces our left in profile, and he turns to look at us. His forehead is lined, and his left eye, to our right, turns in a bit toward his nose. His shoulder-length, wavy, ash-blond hair gleams. His brushy mustache flips up at the ends over closed pink lips, and he has a narrow strip of a beard on the hint of a double chin. He wears a black garment with a wide white collar, and white fabric peeks through a slit in the sleeve we can see. He holds the palette and five thin brushes in the hand closer to us and a sixth brush in his other hand. The palette is dotted with white, light brown, burnt orange, and black smears of paint. The painting within the painting takes up most of the composition, but a sliver of the easel’s legs and the top brace are visible along the upper and lower edges of the composition. The painting within shows a nude, small boy with pale, peachy skin. His blond hair curls onto his forehead and around his ears. He stands with one knee leaning against a rock to our right. He holds a small bow close to his body in his left hand, on our right, with a quiver of arrows slung across his chest. His right hand extends to our left to hook a finger into the collar of a sleek, light-brown dog that lies alongside him. The dog’s chest faces our left, but the head, with a long, narrow muzzle, turns back to gaze at the child. Near the dog’s front feet and the child’s standing foot is a square, light tan stone slab. The top surface is carved with a snake swallowing its tail. A dark brown rocky outcropping rises along the right side of the painting within the painting. Gray clouds skim across a vibrant blue sky above the dog and boy.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino

Self-Portrait before a Painting of "Amor Fedele", 1655

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 33

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 116 x 95.6 cm (45 11/16 x 37 5/8 in.)

framed: 140.7 x 121.9 x 5.7 cm (55 3/8 x 48 x 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Patrons' Permanent Fund

Accession Number

2005.13.1

Artists / Makers

Guercino (painter) Bolognese, 1591 - 1666

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Giovanni Donato Correggio [1608-1674], Venice, 1655.[1] Anonymous donation to Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts, property of The Trustees of Reservations, Beverly, Massachusetts; (sale, Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 21-23 May 2004, 3rd day, no. 1487, as Painter Standing beside a Canvas Depicting Cupid by an unidentified artist); (Old Art Limited, London); purchased 10 February 2005 through (Carol Selle, New York) by NGA.

[1] Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666, Barbara Ghelfi, ed., Bologna, 1997: no. 493, entry of 26 April 1655. The painting is listed in a Correggio collection inventory under 1655 as: "Un quadro con l'Amor fedele et eterno con un bellissimo cane levriero et il ritratto del signor Giovan Francesco Barbieri ditto Guercino fatto da lui medesimo porto d. 3 costò d. 91:12" (Linda Borean, La quadreria di Agostino e Giovan Donato Correggio nel collezionismo veneziano del Seicento, Udine, 2000: 179).

Associated Names

Correggio, Giovanni Donato
Northeast Auctions
Old Art Limited
Selle, Richard, Mr. and Mrs.
Trustees of Reservations, The

Exhibition History

2006: Guercino: Stylistic Evolution in Focus, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, 2006-2007, pl. 7.

Bibliography

1997: Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666. Ed. Barbara Ghelfi. Bologna, 1997: 168, no. 493, entry of 26 April 1655.

1999: Arich de Finetti, Diego, et al. La pittura emiliana nel Veneto. Verona, 1999: 221.

2000: Borean, Linda. La quadreria di Agostino e Giovan Donato Correggio nel collezionismo veneziano del Seicento. Udine, 2000: 179.

2005: Baldassari, Francesca. "L'Amore Fedele ed Eterno del Guercino." Nuovi Studi 11 (2004-2005): 265-268, figs. 206-207.

2014: Borean, Linda. "L'artista e il suo doppio. Ritratti di pittori del Seicento veneziano." Artibus et historiae 35 (2014): 72, 73, fig. 12, 74.

2016: Damian, Véronique. "Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, dit Guercino: L'Amore Virtuoso ou Allégorie des Arts, L'Amore Virtuoso or Allegory of the Arts." In Galerie Canesso, Massimo Stanzione, Guercino, Hendrick De Somer, et Fra' Galgario: Tableaux Redécouverts du XVIe au XVIIIe Siècle, catalogue for TEFAF Maastricht 2016, edited by Véronique Damian, Paris, 2016: 28, 29 fig. 1, 30.