Angelica and Medoro

Guercino made two paintings, in 1642 and 1647, of Angelica and Medoro, the lovers from Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, carving their names into a tree. Both paintings are lost, but they are known from reproductive prints, old photographs, and eight drawings, including this one. Most of the drawings resemble Guglielmo Morghen's eighteenth-century engraving of a painting that was then in Naples. César, sieur de Pressis-Praslin, duc de Choiseul, commissioned the 1647 painting, and a member of the Choiseul family was the ambassadeur extraordinaire in Naples when Morghen-s print was made -- perhaps suggesting that the print and the drawings are related to the later of the two Angelica and Medoro paintings. Given Guercino's habit of reusing ideas from earlier related commissions, however, and the general lack of strict correspondences between his drawings and final paintings, it seems impossible to know whether this sheet (or any of the seven other drawings of the subject) was made in 1642 or 1647. Although the Morgan drawing is a half-length study of Angelica and Medoro, neither of the paintings was a half-length; the drawing is likely one of Guercino's "close-up" studies, in which he focuses not on the overall composition but on the expressions and interactions of the narrative's principal figures. The motif of Angelica looking over Medoro's shoulder, which Guercino develops here, was in the end not used for either painting. -- Catalog entry: Guercino : virtuoso draftsman, Morgan Library & Museum, 2019, p. 90