Resumen de Guercino and Reni: Reflections on the Interpretation of Documents and Paintings
Denis Mahon, D. Stephen Pepper
This article arises from one by Richard Spear published in the September 1994 issue of this Magazine, in which he proposes that Guido Reni's superb painting of St Jerome with an angel in the Detroit Institute of Arts (Fig.34) could, notwithstanding the discrepancy in subject, be identical with a St Matthew begun by Reni (who died on 18th August 1642) and then finished by Guercino, in whose account book a receipt of forty scudi is recorded for such a work on 2nd January 1643.1 In raising what he takes to be a potential question of artistic authorship, Spear's article serves the useful purpose of opening to further investigation a problem touched upon by Stephen Pepper in an article concerning the Detroit painting published in 1969. ' For there are a number of facts which, in the opinions of the present authors, militate against Spearns proposal and which entail investigating the documentary evidence relating to it in fuller detail.
