Descrizione
Storia dell’arte 153, Gennaio – Giugno 2020
Enrico Ghetti
La ricostruzione di una pala del Guercino: la Madonna col bambino e sant’Antonio da Padova per i Cappuccini di Verona
The essay virtually recomposes a late altarpiece by Guercino dismembered in an unspecified period, the Madonna with Child and Saint Anthony of Padua, paid in 1658 by the veronese gentleman Pier Luigi Peccana almost certainly on behalf of the Marquis Gaspare Gherardini. From this altarpiece, come the Madonna with Child formerly in the Sgarbi collection and the Saint Anthony of Padua from the Greenville Museum. Comparing the list of Guercino’s paintings in the Libro dei Conti and the one provided by Malvasia, a lot of differences and some inaccuracies are highlighted, including those relating to the altarpiece in question. Once amended, the intersection of data allows us to identify the probable original location of the painting here reconstructed in the “Chapel of Sant’Antonio” at the Capuchin church of Verona. The reconstruction of the altarpiece starts from the stylistic correspondence of the fragments and continues noting the complementarity of the lower margin of the first with the upper one of the second which, moreover, in an image prior to the restoration shows, behind that hand of Saint Anthony, a portion of drapery perfectly matching the one of the Virgin above.
