@Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna • Guercino in the studio

The Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna proposes an important exhibition project dedicated to the figure of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino . Centered on some of his most significant paintings, the exhibition focuses on the different phases of his activity, on the reasons for the success of his atelier and on the relationship with his customers and most trusted collaborators , with the aim of clarifying the professional dynamics, artistic and entrepreneurial that have characterized his prolific career.

The exhibition has been extended until February 25, 2024.

The exhibition, curated by Barbara Ghelfi and Raffaella Morselli, in collaboration with the museum staff, is part of a series of initiatives that will extend from the city of Bologna to various sites in the Region and to other prestigious national museums. In fact, between 2023 and 2024 the renewed interest in the Bolognese and Emilian artistic tradition and in the figure of Guercino will lead various institutions to organize exhibitions and itineraries on the great master of baroque painting, starting with the reopening of the Pinacoteca di Cento, scheduled for November 2023.

The exhibition brings together around twenty works, including the master's masterpieces preserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna, such as the Madonna del Passero (1615-1616), San Sebastiano curated by Irene (1619), The Vestizione di San Guglielmo ( 1620) and Saint Bruno in adoration of the Madonna and Child in Glory (1647). Added to these are some targeted loans of works by the artist and his collaborators, such as the Self-portrait from a private German collection, the Eternal Father with the Putto , from 1620, from the Strada Nuova Museums of Genoa, the San Sebastiano from 1619 from National Gallery of the Marche, The greengrocer counting coins , a precious work of collaboration between Guercino and his brother Paolo Antonio. The relationships between Guercino, his trusted assistants and the clients are investigated in the light of unpublished archive evidence which helps to clarify the atelier's production systems.

The exhibition will have one of its strong points in the display of the most useful tool for understanding the functioning of the painter's studio, namely the Book of Accounts , generously loaned by the Archiginnasio Library of Bologna. The register, in which the paintings sold, the names of the customers and their earnings were noted, represents a precious inventory of the many paintings created in the flourishing Centese workshop.

Finally, the public will be able to delve into the contents of the exhibition and the knowledge of Guercino's pictorial technique through a multimedia table in which some in-depth paths will be proposed, starting from the innovations that emerged during the diagnostic investigations conducted on the works of the Pinacoteca of Bologna by the Diagnostic Laboratory for Cultural Heritage of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna (Ravenna Campus) as part of the "Guercino. Beyond color" project.