Guercino: the school, the manner (Florence, 12/17/08-2/22/09)

Guercino: The school, the manner. The drawings at the Uffizi
Florenze, Uffizi Gallery, Department of Prints and Drawings - from Dec. 17, 2008 to Feb. 22, 2009

"The Prints and Drawings Department of the Uffizi boasts a remarkable collection of over seventy-five drawings by Guercino, most of them on display in the exhibition. For many of these we have to thank the singularly keen collector’s eye of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, who over a quarter of a century, from 1650 to 1675, amassed an unsurpassed collection of antique drawings. The show also provides the opportunity to illustrate the most recent research and the new attributions that go to join those of the better-known drawings, thus offering the public a complete overview of Barbieri’s importance as a draughtsman. Most of the drawings are figure studies, preparatory designs for compositions spanning the artist’s entire career. However, the Uffizi collection is particularly well-furnished with the earlier graphic works of the artist, executed before his first important Roman sojourn between 1621-1623, which marked a crucial turning-point in Guercino’s artistic training. Other types of drawings on display, comprising landscapes, caricatures and genre subjects, are more difficult to date, since we have only stylistic elements to go by." [Polo Museale Fiorentino]

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