For this Private Viewing, we are delighted to present an exceptional double-sided drawing with a particularly rich critical history. First attributed to Pietro Faccini and supported as such by Mario Di Giampaolo, the sheet was subsequently recognised by Nicholas Turner as an early work by Guercino in a written opinion dated 23 July 2010. Turner then published the recto as Guercino the following year, in Guercino a Reggio Emilia. La genesi dell’invenzione, co-authored with Angelo Mazza. More recently, the drawing has been returned to Faccini in the 2026 monograph devoted to the artist.
We favour Turner’s attribution to the young Guercino, while fully acknowledging the alternative proposal. The chronology is worth bearing in mind: Di Giampaolo died in 2008 and therefore could not have known or responded to Turner’s later opinion, while the 2026 publication does not record either Turner’s 2010 expertise or his published attribution of 2011. The sheet should therefore be understood not as the subject of a simple disagreement, but as a genuinely open question of connoisseurship, made all the more fascinating by the profound stylistic affinities between Faccini and the young Guercino.
Beyond attribution, however, the quality of the drawing speaks with remarkable force. Its generous scale, daring foreshortening, broad modelling and powerful contrasts of light and shadow give the figures an almost sculptural presence. The fact that two substantial studies occupy the recto and verso adds to its fascination, offering an unusually vivid glimpse of an artist testing the expressive possibilities of the male figure.
Presented in a sumptuous seventeenth-century black-and-gold frame, this is above all a drawing of beauty, ambition and remarkable presence. We present it as an early work by Guercino, following Nicholas Turner’s published opinion, while leaving each viewer free to consider the evidence and form their own judgement before the sheet itself.