PR 16

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 173; Larghezza: 237

olio su tela

Il Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 1591-1666) - Bologna - 1968<br>Genova e Guercino. Dipinti e disegni delle civiche collezioni - Genova - 1992<br>El siglo de los genoveses e una lunga storia di arte e splendore nel palazzo dei dogi - Genova - 1999/2000<br>Guercino tra Sacro e Profano - Piacenza - 2017

This painting, in which Cleopatra is depicted in the act of taking her life, in order not to suffer the shame of defeat and imprisonment. The painting was executed by the master in the last phase of his activity, when he had moved to Bologna following the death of Guido Reni (1642), when he inherited the role of head of the school and underwent its influence, moving towards a classicist style, aimed at a greater idealization of the figures accompanied by a progressive reduction of the chromatic range and the frequent use of pastel colours. The canvas is a fine example of this renewed stylistic direction, skilfully playing in only two tones: the white of the sheets and the complexion of Cleopatra and the purple of the cushions, the curtains of the alcove, arranged in a “wall”, as though in a theatrical performance, and the ruby-coloured blood drops that flow from the breast of the queen, who, by now near lifeless, lies languidly on the couch. The painting is identifiable as that mentioned in Guercino’s account books as "painting of Cleopatra" paid 125 ducats "March 24, 1648 by the most illustrious Mons. Carlo Emanuele Durazzi", cousin of Stefano Durazzo. He, as was tradition for many Genoese cardinals, held the position of cardinal for the Emilia region, which was subject to the Papal State. This link - if the legate was not Genoese, then the vicelegate probably was - explains the great wealth of seventeenth century Emilian painting in the collections of the Ligurian city. By the mid-eighteenth century, through various hereditary passages, the painting passed from the Durazzo family into the collection of Gio. Francesco II Brignole - Sale, who placed it in the picture gallery on the second noble floor of Palazzo Rosso. The modalities of the transfer of ownership from the heirs of Carlo Emanuele II Durazzo, for whom the work was executed, to the picture gallery of Gio. Francesco II Brignole-Sale at Palazzo Rosso, where it appeared as early as the 1756 catalog, have not yet been clarified. Careful restoration in 1991 restored the work to its highly refined yet limited color scheme. Drawings in relation to this painting are noteworthy: the one interrogatively attributed to Guercino preserved in Besancon (inv. N. D. 2266), in pen and ink, shows the queen lying on her side, her head resting on the left and in the right-hand side-with greater respect for the literary source-the asp: if it is to be referred to the work at Palazzo Rosso, it is an early study. More interesting are the other two sheets, the one from the P. E n de Boer collection in Amsterdam, in pen and ink, and the one from a private U.S. collection. In the Dutch drawing, the bust of Cleopatra in particular appears to be defined, while it does not seem that the artist intended to depict her completely lying down. This detail is, however, evident in the American drawing, where the tasseled pillow and curtains also appear. The painting depicts Cleopatra dying on a bed while being bitten by a snake.

PB 160

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 133; Larghezza: 142

olio su tavole di rovere

Mostra d'Arte Antica - Genova - 1982<br>Pieter Paul Rubens. Kritischer Katalog der Zeichnungen - Berlino - 1990<br>Rubens - Lille - 2003

The painting is presented as an allegory, in which traditionally have been recognized the figures of Love disarming Mars, god of war, who, astonished, surrenders to the prococious charms of Venus and the intoxication caused by the wine contained in the silver flask and cup, offered to him by Bacchus, the god of the joy of life. Venus wears coeval clothes, her face and her curvy physiognomy reflect canons of beauty common in Rubens's production and do not belong, as the inventories of the Brignole - Sale house wanted, to the painter's second wife. Mars, on the other hand, wears the typical attire of the lansquenet and is not a self-portrait of the artist, as the aforementioned inventories estimated, but reproduces the face, identical even in expression, of a member of the Van den Wijngaerd family, which Rubens portrayed at least two other times. The Fury that bursts, on the right, from the shadows of a landscape that, on the left, is revealed to be desolate, burned and ravaged by war, has been realized with vibrant essential touches of brown and black directly on the reddish-brown preparation and contrasts with the sensuous chromatic intensity and intact luminosity of the impasti of the figures in the foreground, of Titianesque ancestry. Recently the subject has been interpreted more generically as an Allegory of Intemperance, rejecting the identification of the two protagonists as the god of War and the goddess of Love. , A masterpiece of the Flemish artist's late maturity, datable between 1632 and 1635, the panel is first mentioned in Genoa in about 1735, when it was reported to have belonged to Gio. Francesco II Brignole - Sale in the Palazzo Rosso; according to a recent investigation, however, the painting would have come to the city from Madrid about thirty years earlier, probably through Francesco de Mari. The vicissitudes of the work in the following thirty years until 1735 are still unknown.

PB 176

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 152,5; Larghezza: 64; Varie: Tavola con San Benedetto; Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 152,5; Larghezza: 64; Varie: Tavola con San Gerolamo; Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 153; Larghezza: 89; Varie: Tavola della Madonna col Bambino

olio su tavola di rovere

Mostra della pittura antica in Liguria - Genova - 1946<br>Il Polittico della Cervara di Gerard David - Genova - 2006

The polyptych comes from the Benedictine abbey of San Gerolamo della Cervara (Santa Margherita Ligure- GE) and was commissioned to Gerard David by Vincenzo Sauli to be placed at the entrance to the choir of the monastic church. Of the seven panels that made up the polyptych at Palazzo Bianco, the three main compartments depicting the Madonna and Child, known as the “Madonna of the Grapes,” St. Jerome and St. Benedict, as well as the upper crowning of the central panel, depicting the Crucifixion, are on display. The missing parts are now in the Metropolitan Museum (Announcing Angel and Announcing Madonna) and the Louvre (lunette with the Blessing Father). An inscription, known from a 1790 account, ran under the base of the Virgin's throne and read, “Hoc opus fecit fieri D.nus Vincentius Saulus MCCCCCVI die VII septembris” [cf. G. Spinola, Memorie storiche del Monistero..., 18th century, c. 596]. The three compartments compose a unified space, made continuous by the foreshortening of the floor, the architectural structure of the throne, and the “millefiori” tapestry that serves as a background for the Virgin and the figures of the two saints. This type of tapestry was believed to be a metaphor for Paradise, populated by the different categories of the elect - roses allude to the martyrs, violets to the confessors, lilies to the virgins - and helps to connote as heavenly the space that welcomes the holy figures. In the center, seated on a throne, Mary holds Jesus and helps him pluck a grape from a bunch of grapes, alluding to the sacrifice of the cross and the Eucharistic wine salvation. The gemstone shining in the Virgin's forehead, attached to a strip of precious fabric on which the incipit of the Ave Maria is embroidered, alludes to the words of the Psalmist: “royal Virgin, adorned with the gems of many virtues, radiant with the splendor of spirit and body,” while Mary's royalty, which comes to her from belonging to the bloodline of David and from being the mother and bride of the King of Heaven, is reaffirmed by the verses of the Salve Regina, embroidered in gold letters along the hem of the mantle.

Oil on canvas, 121 x 94 cm

Oil on canvas, 176 x 185 cm