XIII - Paintings and Drawings - Marty de Cambiaire

well-delineated nose, short straight hair, similar expression of
concentration and seriousness, intense look, and slightly open
mouth. As for the hand that seems to be seizing a drapery,
it can be connected with several hands of the figures in the
painting Shah Abbas, First Ambassador to Europe, in Venice
(Venice, the Doge’s Palace, 1595), but most particularly with
the hand of the doge of Venice. Finally, the arm studies on the
verso remind, in the reverse, of the arm of one of the beggars
in Alms of St. Christina (Bergamo, the Accademia Carrara).
1 ‘Having devoted himself to studying from early childhood,
Carlo drew a lot after his father and Bassano […] and
living in a village near Treviso, he amused himself drawing
shepherds, sheep, small herbs, flowers, and rural tools; a
large number of these drawings have been collected and
kept by Mr Caliari’s nephew showing the beauty and the
talent of this young artist” in Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie
dell’arte ovvero le vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello
stato, second edition, Padova, 1837, p. 82-85.
2 “added glory and honour to their family” in Ridolfi op.cit.
3 “adult, decorated with virtue and very well-mannered” in
Ridolfi op.cit.
4 Several bear the inscription of the collector called
“unreliable hand” in reference to his numerous attribution
mistakes, but in this case he is right.
5 William Roger Rearick, Il disegno veneziano del
cinquecento, 2001, p. 180.
Guido Reni
Bologna 1575 – 1642
Study for the Head of an Angel
Black chalk, red chalk and pastel, with incised outline, over
paper laid down on vellum
Inscribed Del Guido Reni at upper left
425 x 295 mm (16 3 /4 x 11 5 /8 in.)
The present fine study for the head of a young man is
preparatory for the Annunciation painted by Guido Reni in
1620-21 for the church of San Pietro in Valle of Fano. The work
described as “rather deteriorated” 1 in 1971 was restored in
1988. Reni had been a model pupil of Dyonisos Calvaert, then
of the Carracci, and he finally started to work independently
around 1598. In the early 1600s, his artistic creation, which
gracefully combines the classicism deriving from his training
period with Caravaggio’s realism, achieved immense success
in Rome. Obtaining prestigious commissions from the pope,
Guido Reni became the most esteemed painter whose fame
extended far beyond the Eternal City.
Founded in 1610, the church of San Pietro in Valle at Fano,
in the region of Marche, was built on the ruins of a Medieval
church due to the efforts of father Girolamo Gabrielli. Art
historians agree, on the basis of several archival documents,
that it was San Filippo Neri’s direct disciple and the rector
of the Congregation of the Oratory that commissioned the
Annunciation to Guido Reni, as well as Christ Delivering the
Keys to St. Peter, today in the Louvre museum. The artist had
already worked for the Congregation, particularly between
June and October 1614, executing the effigy of its founder in
an altarpiece for the chapel of San-Filippo-Neri of the church
of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. The commission of the
church of Fano was documented in published correspondence
and studies on several occasions 2 , which allows to establish
the chronology of the creation of the paintings. The work
on the Annunciation, intended to adorn the chapel of father
Gabrielli’s family, started in 1620, and the painting was
consigned in September 1621. In a letter dated 23 March
1622, Guido Reni, promised to start working on the second
work, part of the same commission, “the other panel of the
Saviour with St. Peter”.
Although the Annunciation has been admired and praised
many times 3 , particularly by Simone Cantarini who
considered it as one of the most beautiful paintings of
the world 4 , it may have not fully satisfied his patron. In
1622, in fact, Guido Reni wrote to Gabrielli regarding the
second commissioned painting in progress of execution
that he hoped to “make a better thing than the first one”.
Whether it was a sincere confession of his disappointment
or false modesty of a courtier, Reni’s sentence brought
about several interpretations and its true meaning will
never be clearly understood. What is, however, certain is
the novelty of the work on many levels. Stephen Pepper
extensively commented on two of its most surprising aspects
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