King David and the Wise Woman: Guercino at Waddesdon
£15.00
By Juliet Carey
This book accompanies an exhibition at Waddesdon Manor (2024), on one of the great Italian painters of the seventeenth century, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Known as Guercino (1591-1666). It brings together for the first time Waddesdon’s King David with three paintings of sibyls (female prophets from classical antiquity) on loan from the National Gallery in London and the Royal Collection.
Readers will be immersed in the poetry, colour and majesty of these works, which were all painted in the year 1951. The book investigates the relationship between David, the Jewish patriarch, psalmist and prophet who foretold the coming of the Messiah and whom Christians believed prefigured Christ, and the pagan seers, who supposedly prophesised Christ’s birth. With their brilliant portrayal of flesh and ermine, paper, wood and stone, these works conjure up ideas about vision and inspiration, poetry and prophecy.
Featuring approximately 30 images.
Full description
Over 350 years since they were painted, five paintings by renowned Bolognese painter Guercino are on display together for the first time at Waddesdon in a new exhibition.
This historic exhibition spotlights one of the great painters of 17th-century Italy, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (1591-1666). Brought together for the first time since leaving the artist’s studio in 1651, are Waddesdon’s King David alongside two associated paintings of sibyls from the National Gallery and another sibyl from the Royal Collection, painted the same year.
Also on display and never before seen in public is Guercino’s recently rediscovered depiction of Moses. This is one of the most important additions to Guercino’s body of work and adds to our understanding of his early maturity, a period considered by many to be his greatest for the dynamism, vigour and spontaneity of his painting.
| Hardcover | 48 pages |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Paul Holberton Publishing |
| Size | 240x170mm |
