St. Jerome Weeping over a Skull

The style and handling of this sheet are typical of Guercino's studies in red chalk from the late 1630s or early 1640s. Although the penitent St. Jerome occurs repeatedly throughout the artist's oeuvre, no directly related painting by Guercino is known. Guercino executed several canvases with the weeping St. Peter in 1639-40, as well as various half-length paintings of St. Jerome, but the scale and finish of this drawing, akin to that of the Virgin and Child with a book and a pot of pinks (IV, 168g), suggest that it was, like that sheet, perhaps an independent graphic exercise. The drawing is close in conception to the paintings of Guercino's contemporary and compatriot Guido Reni, and it was once erroneously but not unreasonably attributed to that Bolognese painter, as indicated by the inscription at the lower left. -- Catalog entry: Guercino : virtuoso draftsman, Morgan Library & Museum, 2019, p. 86