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Lot Essay
Guercino's King David, one of the most important of the artist's late works, is a superlative example both of the technical excellence that made him one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese school, and of the inventive powers that imbue so many of his paintings with a rich and nuanced set of associations, ideas and symbolism. In an exceptional state of preservation, its paint layer retaining all of its original subtlety of touch and structure, King David occupies a special place in the history of collecting, inextricably linked to the story of Spencer House, one of the key monuments of the Greek Revival in eighteenth-century Britain.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, nicknamed 'il Guercino', was born in 1591. His birthplace of Cento, near Bologna, was a small town with no significant prior artistic tradition, and Guercino was largely self-taught. His natural gifts soon came to the notice of the earlier generation of Bolognese artists, including the aged Ludovico Carracci, who extolled the rising young artist in a letter of 1617. Over the next decades Guercino was to become celebrated as one of the greatest painters of his day. His works were highly sought-after, and he is known to have turned down offers from King Charles I of England, King Louis XIII of France and possibly King Philip IV of Spain (who may have sent Velázquez as his agent), to leave Italy and become a court painter in their respective capitals. Instead, it seems that Guercino was always perfectly happy where he was. Apart from an important, formative trip to Rome early in his career (in the years 1621-1623), he spent his whole life in his native Cento or in nearby Bologna, to which he moved in 1642. He painted prolifically, producing sophisticated, beautiful works combining the contemplative naturalism of Bolognese classicism with dramatic effects at times akin to those introduced into Roman painting by Caravaggio. Guercino's early works are distinguished by bold, saturated colouring, large-scale figures and dynamic compositions. In his late works, the compositional tension becomes more subdued, and his attention turns towards an understated elegance of forms and harmony of palette; in his output of the 1650s, including the present King David, Ellis K. Waterhouse saw the attainment of 'a mastery of tender and tranquil colour' (Italian Baroque Painting, London, 1962, p. 115).
A prophet and two sibyls: The story of the commission
The genesis of King David lies in an important commission from the nobleman Giuseppe Locatelli of Cesena, the story of which is recorded by Guercino's early biographers and is one of the most interesting anecdotes about the artist's interaction with his patrons. In early 1651, Giuseppe Locatelli commissioned a pair of pictures from Guercino: the King David and a pendant work, which was to show one of the sibyls, legendary prophetesses of the classical tradition. King David was finished by late April or early May 1651, as recorded in letters from Guercino to Locatelli's agent (dated 22 and 27 April and 10 May, loc. cit.). which note that he would be sending the prophet as soon as the varnish had dried, but that he was still at work on the sibyl, somewhat delayed by the arrival of a prestigious commission from the Duke of Modena (the Madonna and Child with the Patron Saints of Modena, now in the Louvre, Paris). We can assume that King David had reached Cesena by 16 May 1651, the date on which Guercino's Libro dei conti, or account book, records a payment of 166 scudi (loc. cit.; fig. 1). Clearly, Locatelli was satisfied with the first of his pictures. While its pair, the sibyl, was nearing completion in Guercino's Bolognese studio, the artist received a visit from Prince Mattias de' Medici (1613-1667), brother of Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany, who was so smitten with the sibyl intended for Locatelli that he soon offered to buy it. No record survives of the negotiations that must have taken place as Guercino was faced with the prospect of being unable to deliver the second half of Locatelli's commission, having already made note of his progress on the sibyl in letters to Locatelli's agent, but the entry for 26 May in the Libro dei conti records that Prince Mattias eventually paid 237 scudi for the privilege of commandeering the second painting from the unsuspecting Locatelli. This original pendant to King David was identified as The Cumaean Sibyl by Guercino's addition of an inscription similar to that in King David, and is thought to have spent the better part of the next two centuries in Florence. It is now in the collection of Sir Denis Mahon, on loan to the National Gallery, London (fig. 2).
Having split the pairing between King David and its first companion, Guercino now had the task of honouring the original commission: he still had to provide Locatelli with the promised sibyl. As Helston and Henry aptly put it in 1991, 'It is a testament to Guercino's originality and honesty that he did not in these circumstances merely produce two identical versions of the same composition' (loc. cit.). Instead, Guercino painted an entirely new sibyl, of a colour scheme, dimensions and scale to match King David and the original sibyl, but of an entirely different composition (fig. 3; The Samian Sibyl, Althorp, Northamptonshire). This sibyl was delivered to Locatelli by 7 October 1651, the date on which payment is recorded in the Libro dei conti, almost five full months after Locatelli had received the prophet. The pair remained in the possession of the Marchesi Locatelli until 1768, when Gavin Hamilton successfully negotiated their sale to the 1st Earl Spencer under further eventful circumstances, as described below.
The Symbolism of King David
King David is a recurrent protagonist in Guercino's work. Most often he appears in depictions of the exploits of his youth, for example in the dramatic Saul attempting the murder of David (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica). The depiction of David in the present picture, however, departs from these precedents, in which he is almost invariably shown as a beardless young man. Instead, it deploys a specific set of attributes to emphasise that this is the sage David of his later years - no longer merely a heroic shepherd, he is David the King and Prophet. The bearded figure, wearing a turban, crown and ermine-lined mantle and holding a sceptre, sits on a carved throne by a draped table, a single column in the background, echoing a standard formula for royal and princely portraits of the Baroque era. The stone slab which David seems to support with effortless ease is carved with an inscription in Roman lettering, like an epigraph unearthed in the ruins of an ancient monument: 'GLORIOSA DICTA SVNT DE TE CIVITAS DEI. PSALM.S 86.' This line is the third line of one of the Psalms, the series of poetic prayers traditionally attributed to David, and interpreted as foretelling the coming of the Messiah:
The foundations thereof are the holy mountains:
The Lord loves the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob.
Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!
Numbered 86 in Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament (87 in the Hebrew Torah and Protestant Bibles), this psalm would have been immediately familiar to Guercino's audience. By his inclusion of this line in the picture, Guercino underscores the prophetic theme of this image of King David. The richly-attired king looks down toward the inscribed tablet he holds, musing on the words of his own prophecy; despite his monumental physical presence, David himself is withdrawn, contemplating the truths of his divinely-inspired utterance with a calm, stoic understanding of its inevitability, and a humble knowledge of his role as an intermediary between the realms of the divine and the mortal.
Further symbolism becomes apparent by virtue of King David's pairing with a sibyl, as opposed to another Old Testament prophet. The second pendant to King David, that which was finally delivered to Locatelli, bears an inscription identifying it as The Samian Sibyl. It is unclear whether this reflects Locatelli's original specifications - Michael Kitson and Gabrieli Finaldi argue that it may have made 'little difference to Locatelli whether the King David was paired with a Cumaean or a Samian Sibyl', but note 'that it is also possible that Locatelli may have wanted a Samian Sibyl from the beginning' (loc. cit.). The pairing between an Old Testament prophet and a sibyl was an unusual choice in the Seicento, but finds precedents in Cinquecento painting and in an earlier typological tradition dating from the Middle Ages. The Sibyls were semi-historical figures mentioned in classical texts as prophetesses of the pre-Christian, pagan tradition, often associated with a specific sacred site such as the oracle at Delphi or the cave at Cumae, near Naples. Later tradition specified that there were either twelve or seven chief sibyls, including the Samian, the Cumaean, the Delphic, the Libyan, the Cimmerian, the Persian and others scattered across the known world. According to tradition, the Sibyls recorded their prophecies in books, most of which had been lost; but some of their specific prophecies were alluded to in classical texts, and the early Christian Fathers, especially Saint Augustine of Hippo, interpreted their maxims as foretelling the coming of Christ. The Samian Sibyl was believed to have foretold that Christ would be born in Bethlehem - the 'City of David' in which the future king had lived as a shepherd. The pairing can thus also be read as an allusion to the Nativity - the birth of Christ in the house of David, in Bethlehem as prophesied by the Samian Sibyl.
During the decades immediately before the High Renaissance, the notion that the Sibyls had foreseen the coming of Christ became an argument in favour of the validity of pagan classical learning as a whole. As worthy counterparts of the Hebrew prophets, the Sibyls formed a feminine cohort of seers to complement the patriarchal Old Testament lineage. At the dawn of the Cinquecento, they were depicted by some of the most celebrated painters of the High Renaissance, including Perugino, Raphael, and, above all, Michelangelo, whose frescoes for the Sistine Chapel ceiling are famously decorated with alternating prophets and sibyls. Guercino would have seen the Sistine Chapel ceiling during his Roman sojourn in 1621-1623, and Michelangelo's towering example could not have failed to be in his mind as he worked on Locatelli's pair. Like Michelangelo's prophets and sibyls, Guercino's possess a sculptural monumentality, each set into a large, spare space which they dominate with their presence, their well-proportioned bodies arranged with a dynamic sense of stilled movement, though Guercino's pair speak with a tranquillity and a detachment all their own.
Pentiments and Drawings
The excellent condition in which King David has survived allows for a full appreciation of Guercino's painting technique. One or two pentimenti indicate changes that he made during the execution of the picture: there is an adjustment to the lower edge of the stone tablet, and the entirety of the strip of golden cloth across David's shoulders and chest would seem to have been added by the artist at a later stage in the picture's development. The small number of changes at the painting stage suggests that the pose and composition must have been carefully worked out in preliminary drawings, although none that can be specifically linked to this picture have been traced. The structure of David's head, gently inclined towards the stone tablet, recalls that which Guercino used for God the Father in numerous paintings and related drawings (for example, see D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, no. 189).
Worthy of special notice is a red chalk drawing by Guercino depicting a middle-aged, bearded man looking down and to the right, buried in his thoughts (see fig. 4; Christie's, New York, 11 January 1994, lot 203). Usually linked to Guercino's bust-length The Prophet Isaiah (see Salerno, no. 255; Christie's, New York, 31 May 1989, lot 80), the drawing may actually be closer to King David. Although it is like Isaiah in that the figure is shown bare-headed, lacking David's elaborate turban and crown, the angled shoulders, the tilt of the head and its locks of flowing hair, distinctly separate from the hair of the beard, resemble the arrangement of David's head more closely than that in Isaiah.
The Spencers: Love and Art
By some accounts, John, 1st Earl Spencer was the richest man in Britain (fig. 5). The son of the Hon. 'Jack' Spencer, a notorious bon vivant, John Spencer inherited his fortune at the age of twelve, and already before attaining the majority required to direct it he showed precocious signs of knowing exactly how he wanted to spend his money, often in very imaginative ways. With such a vast fortune in the wings, Spencer had no need to forge a marital alliance for financial gain. Instead, he married for love, taking the young Georgiana Poyntz as his bride (fig. 6). After a thrilling courtship which is documented by Georgiana's surviving letters, the two were wed in a secret marriage on John Spencer's 21st birthday. Once the wedding was revealed to the world at large, the Spencers travelled to London in style, where they were received by the dowager Princess of Wales and King George II, and where they themselves received, by some counts, 600 well-wishers in the first week. As the most fashionable couple in town, the newlyweds could expect to do a considerable amount of entertaining, and it was partly with this in mind that John Spencer set about building a lavish new townhouse. Spencer House (fig. 7) was conceived both as an expression of the 21-year-old Spencer's newly attained independence and, perhaps more importantly, as a tribute to his new wife. The house also became an exercise of Spencer's passion for antiquity and its neo-classical resurrection. The 1750s, when work on the site began, belong to the height of the Greek Revival period; Spencer's architects and architectural advisors were all connected to the influential Society of Dilettanti, an elite club of patrons and artists who sought to promote and disseminate the classical culture they had encountered on the Grand Tour. One of these was the painter, archaeologist, architect and designer James 'Athenian' Stuart, who would also play in important part in the story of King David.
In order to acquire masterpieces to decorate the walls of Spencer House, Lord Spencer cultivated a network of trusted agents and advisors spread across Europe, acting on his behalf in the acquisition of works from some of the richest collections formed over the preceding centuries. One of these advisors was the Scottish painter, archaeologist and dealer Gavin Hamilton, who had been established in Rome in 1748, where he was well-placed to advise British Grand Tourists on what to see on their travels in Italy - and what to take home. The Spencers met Hamilton on their tour to Italy in 1763-1764, possibly on the recommendation of 'Athenian' Stuart, an old friend of Hamilton's, now back in London completing the decoration to Spencer House. Hamilton acted as a guide to the Spencers, conducting Lady Spencer, for example, through the collections at the Palazzo Barberini, where she was greatly taken by the antique statuary. In 1765, not long after their return to England, the Spencers commissioned a painting from Hamilton, the subject of which was to be Agrippina with the ashes of Germanicus (Althorp, Northamptonshire). It has been argued that part of the motivation for the commission was as 'a sort of douceur to secure Hamilton's services' on the more important matter of acquiring capital Old Masters fit to grace the walls of the Great Room at Spencer House (Waterhouse, 1954, loc. cit.). This became Hamilton's mission over the next several years, as he travelled across Italy seeking out one after another potential acquisition. His letters to Lady Spencer document a number of attempts to secure big pictures serving all of the criteria of 'our purpose[:] size subject & preservation' (21 May 1766), attempts often plagued with difficulties - intrigues on the part of locals anxious not to lose their altarpieces, disagreements over prices, even delays due to export license applications. Hamilton travelled with an Italian artist, Ricciolini, who was at the ready to paint a copy of any picture that Hamilton bought for the Spencers, should this smooth the way for its acquisition with the prior owners. More than a year later, Hamilton had yet to secure a large picture by a major artist for Spencer House, writing 'something must be done now that I have engaged to serve my Lord, or I am resolved never to see England more, your Ladyship can non [sic] imagine the anxiety of mind I have, least I should appear careless in executing my Lord's commission' (11 April 1767). Finally, after nearly another year of frustration, Hamilton triumphed - and it had been well worth his patience and the wait. On 4 May 1768 he wrote of having 'at last found at Cesena two pictures of Guercino in every respect agreeable to my Lord Spencer's commission'. These works were 'painted in his last & most pleasing manner, viz. in the style of the Circumcision at Bologna or the Sibyl at the Capitol; one represents a King David, the other a Sibyl'. Hamilton lost no time in securing the pictures and shipping them to London:
As the pictures are in perfect preservation I have ordered a large roller to be made with a case in which they will remain suspended, after they are well secured with wax-cloth, canvass, etc. I propose to send them to Pesaro upon a stacino made with a network of cords to prevent any damage by jolting; from Pesaro I shall see them set out in the same manner for Civita Vecchia by the Furlo, so that by avoiding Rome, we shall save time, trouble and expense.
Knowing that the Spencers were also very anxious about having their pictures framed well - Lady Spencer had earlier written to stress 'My Lord would not have a frame made at Rome as it must be framed in the same Manner as the Pictures among which it will be placed here' (28 June 1766) - Hamilton sent the Spencers the precise dimensions of the two canvasses, 'so that no time may be lost in ordering the frame'--'When they are strained upon the stretching frame I would advise nailing a very thick slip of wood around the picture that nothing may be lost in the rabbit [rebate] of the frame, this ought to be mentioned to the framemaker' (4 May 1768). Indeed, the way the pictures were to be framed was of key importance. Stuart had designed the Great Room, which also served as the ballroom at Spencer House, specifically for the display of Spencer's Old Masters, hanging the walls with red damask, and the frame of the present picture was specially designed by Stuart to match the mouldings of the doorcases and window surrounds he had also designed for the room.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, nicknamed 'il Guercino', was born in 1591. His birthplace of Cento, near Bologna, was a small town with no significant prior artistic tradition, and Guercino was largely self-taught. His natural gifts soon came to the notice of the earlier generation of Bolognese artists, including the aged Ludovico Carracci, who extolled the rising young artist in a letter of 1617. Over the next decades Guercino was to become celebrated as one of the greatest painters of his day. His works were highly sought-after, and he is known to have turned down offers from King Charles I of England, King Louis XIII of France and possibly King Philip IV of Spain (who may have sent Velázquez as his agent), to leave Italy and become a court painter in their respective capitals. Instead, it seems that Guercino was always perfectly happy where he was. Apart from an important, formative trip to Rome early in his career (in the years 1621-1623), he spent his whole life in his native Cento or in nearby Bologna, to which he moved in 1642. He painted prolifically, producing sophisticated, beautiful works combining the contemplative naturalism of Bolognese classicism with dramatic effects at times akin to those introduced into Roman painting by Caravaggio. Guercino's early works are distinguished by bold, saturated colouring, large-scale figures and dynamic compositions. In his late works, the compositional tension becomes more subdued, and his attention turns towards an understated elegance of forms and harmony of palette; in his output of the 1650s, including the present King David, Ellis K. Waterhouse saw the attainment of 'a mastery of tender and tranquil colour' (Italian Baroque Painting, London, 1962, p. 115).
A prophet and two sibyls: The story of the commission
The genesis of King David lies in an important commission from the nobleman Giuseppe Locatelli of Cesena, the story of which is recorded by Guercino's early biographers and is one of the most interesting anecdotes about the artist's interaction with his patrons. In early 1651, Giuseppe Locatelli commissioned a pair of pictures from Guercino: the King David and a pendant work, which was to show one of the sibyls, legendary prophetesses of the classical tradition. King David was finished by late April or early May 1651, as recorded in letters from Guercino to Locatelli's agent (dated 22 and 27 April and 10 May, loc. cit.). which note that he would be sending the prophet as soon as the varnish had dried, but that he was still at work on the sibyl, somewhat delayed by the arrival of a prestigious commission from the Duke of Modena (the Madonna and Child with the Patron Saints of Modena, now in the Louvre, Paris). We can assume that King David had reached Cesena by 16 May 1651, the date on which Guercino's Libro dei conti, or account book, records a payment of 166 scudi (loc. cit.; fig. 1). Clearly, Locatelli was satisfied with the first of his pictures. While its pair, the sibyl, was nearing completion in Guercino's Bolognese studio, the artist received a visit from Prince Mattias de' Medici (1613-1667), brother of Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany, who was so smitten with the sibyl intended for Locatelli that he soon offered to buy it. No record survives of the negotiations that must have taken place as Guercino was faced with the prospect of being unable to deliver the second half of Locatelli's commission, having already made note of his progress on the sibyl in letters to Locatelli's agent, but the entry for 26 May in the Libro dei conti records that Prince Mattias eventually paid 237 scudi for the privilege of commandeering the second painting from the unsuspecting Locatelli. This original pendant to King David was identified as The Cumaean Sibyl by Guercino's addition of an inscription similar to that in King David, and is thought to have spent the better part of the next two centuries in Florence. It is now in the collection of Sir Denis Mahon, on loan to the National Gallery, London (fig. 2).
Having split the pairing between King David and its first companion, Guercino now had the task of honouring the original commission: he still had to provide Locatelli with the promised sibyl. As Helston and Henry aptly put it in 1991, 'It is a testament to Guercino's originality and honesty that he did not in these circumstances merely produce two identical versions of the same composition' (loc. cit.). Instead, Guercino painted an entirely new sibyl, of a colour scheme, dimensions and scale to match King David and the original sibyl, but of an entirely different composition (fig. 3; The Samian Sibyl, Althorp, Northamptonshire). This sibyl was delivered to Locatelli by 7 October 1651, the date on which payment is recorded in the Libro dei conti, almost five full months after Locatelli had received the prophet. The pair remained in the possession of the Marchesi Locatelli until 1768, when Gavin Hamilton successfully negotiated their sale to the 1st Earl Spencer under further eventful circumstances, as described below.
The Symbolism of King David
King David is a recurrent protagonist in Guercino's work. Most often he appears in depictions of the exploits of his youth, for example in the dramatic Saul attempting the murder of David (Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica). The depiction of David in the present picture, however, departs from these precedents, in which he is almost invariably shown as a beardless young man. Instead, it deploys a specific set of attributes to emphasise that this is the sage David of his later years - no longer merely a heroic shepherd, he is David the King and Prophet. The bearded figure, wearing a turban, crown and ermine-lined mantle and holding a sceptre, sits on a carved throne by a draped table, a single column in the background, echoing a standard formula for royal and princely portraits of the Baroque era. The stone slab which David seems to support with effortless ease is carved with an inscription in Roman lettering, like an epigraph unearthed in the ruins of an ancient monument: 'GLORIOSA DICTA SVNT DE TE CIVITAS DEI. PSALM.
The foundations thereof are the holy mountains:
The Lord loves the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob.
Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!
Numbered 86 in Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament (87 in the Hebrew Torah and Protestant Bibles), this psalm would have been immediately familiar to Guercino's audience. By his inclusion of this line in the picture, Guercino underscores the prophetic theme of this image of King David. The richly-attired king looks down toward the inscribed tablet he holds, musing on the words of his own prophecy; despite his monumental physical presence, David himself is withdrawn, contemplating the truths of his divinely-inspired utterance with a calm, stoic understanding of its inevitability, and a humble knowledge of his role as an intermediary between the realms of the divine and the mortal.
Further symbolism becomes apparent by virtue of King David's pairing with a sibyl, as opposed to another Old Testament prophet. The second pendant to King David, that which was finally delivered to Locatelli, bears an inscription identifying it as The Samian Sibyl. It is unclear whether this reflects Locatelli's original specifications - Michael Kitson and Gabrieli Finaldi argue that it may have made 'little difference to Locatelli whether the King David was paired with a Cumaean or a Samian Sibyl', but note 'that it is also possible that Locatelli may have wanted a Samian Sibyl from the beginning' (loc. cit.). The pairing between an Old Testament prophet and a sibyl was an unusual choice in the Seicento, but finds precedents in Cinquecento painting and in an earlier typological tradition dating from the Middle Ages. The Sibyls were semi-historical figures mentioned in classical texts as prophetesses of the pre-Christian, pagan tradition, often associated with a specific sacred site such as the oracle at Delphi or the cave at Cumae, near Naples. Later tradition specified that there were either twelve or seven chief sibyls, including the Samian, the Cumaean, the Delphic, the Libyan, the Cimmerian, the Persian and others scattered across the known world. According to tradition, the Sibyls recorded their prophecies in books, most of which had been lost; but some of their specific prophecies were alluded to in classical texts, and the early Christian Fathers, especially Saint Augustine of Hippo, interpreted their maxims as foretelling the coming of Christ. The Samian Sibyl was believed to have foretold that Christ would be born in Bethlehem - the 'City of David' in which the future king had lived as a shepherd. The pairing can thus also be read as an allusion to the Nativity - the birth of Christ in the house of David, in Bethlehem as prophesied by the Samian Sibyl.
During the decades immediately before the High Renaissance, the notion that the Sibyls had foreseen the coming of Christ became an argument in favour of the validity of pagan classical learning as a whole. As worthy counterparts of the Hebrew prophets, the Sibyls formed a feminine cohort of seers to complement the patriarchal Old Testament lineage. At the dawn of the Cinquecento, they were depicted by some of the most celebrated painters of the High Renaissance, including Perugino, Raphael, and, above all, Michelangelo, whose frescoes for the Sistine Chapel ceiling are famously decorated with alternating prophets and sibyls. Guercino would have seen the Sistine Chapel ceiling during his Roman sojourn in 1621-1623, and Michelangelo's towering example could not have failed to be in his mind as he worked on Locatelli's pair. Like Michelangelo's prophets and sibyls, Guercino's possess a sculptural monumentality, each set into a large, spare space which they dominate with their presence, their well-proportioned bodies arranged with a dynamic sense of stilled movement, though Guercino's pair speak with a tranquillity and a detachment all their own.
Pentiments and Drawings
The excellent condition in which King David has survived allows for a full appreciation of Guercino's painting technique. One or two pentimenti indicate changes that he made during the execution of the picture: there is an adjustment to the lower edge of the stone tablet, and the entirety of the strip of golden cloth across David's shoulders and chest would seem to have been added by the artist at a later stage in the picture's development. The small number of changes at the painting stage suggests that the pose and composition must have been carefully worked out in preliminary drawings, although none that can be specifically linked to this picture have been traced. The structure of David's head, gently inclined towards the stone tablet, recalls that which Guercino used for God the Father in numerous paintings and related drawings (for example, see D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, no. 189).
Worthy of special notice is a red chalk drawing by Guercino depicting a middle-aged, bearded man looking down and to the right, buried in his thoughts (see fig. 4; Christie's, New York, 11 January 1994, lot 203). Usually linked to Guercino's bust-length The Prophet Isaiah (see Salerno, no. 255; Christie's, New York, 31 May 1989, lot 80), the drawing may actually be closer to King David. Although it is like Isaiah in that the figure is shown bare-headed, lacking David's elaborate turban and crown, the angled shoulders, the tilt of the head and its locks of flowing hair, distinctly separate from the hair of the beard, resemble the arrangement of David's head more closely than that in Isaiah.
The Spencers: Love and Art
By some accounts, John, 1st Earl Spencer was the richest man in Britain (fig. 5). The son of the Hon. 'Jack' Spencer, a notorious bon vivant, John Spencer inherited his fortune at the age of twelve, and already before attaining the majority required to direct it he showed precocious signs of knowing exactly how he wanted to spend his money, often in very imaginative ways. With such a vast fortune in the wings, Spencer had no need to forge a marital alliance for financial gain. Instead, he married for love, taking the young Georgiana Poyntz as his bride (fig. 6). After a thrilling courtship which is documented by Georgiana's surviving letters, the two were wed in a secret marriage on John Spencer's 21st birthday. Once the wedding was revealed to the world at large, the Spencers travelled to London in style, where they were received by the dowager Princess of Wales and King George II, and where they themselves received, by some counts, 600 well-wishers in the first week. As the most fashionable couple in town, the newlyweds could expect to do a considerable amount of entertaining, and it was partly with this in mind that John Spencer set about building a lavish new townhouse. Spencer House (fig. 7) was conceived both as an expression of the 21-year-old Spencer's newly attained independence and, perhaps more importantly, as a tribute to his new wife. The house also became an exercise of Spencer's passion for antiquity and its neo-classical resurrection. The 1750s, when work on the site began, belong to the height of the Greek Revival period; Spencer's architects and architectural advisors were all connected to the influential Society of Dilettanti, an elite club of patrons and artists who sought to promote and disseminate the classical culture they had encountered on the Grand Tour. One of these was the painter, archaeologist, architect and designer James 'Athenian' Stuart, who would also play in important part in the story of King David.
In order to acquire masterpieces to decorate the walls of Spencer House, Lord Spencer cultivated a network of trusted agents and advisors spread across Europe, acting on his behalf in the acquisition of works from some of the richest collections formed over the preceding centuries. One of these advisors was the Scottish painter, archaeologist and dealer Gavin Hamilton, who had been established in Rome in 1748, where he was well-placed to advise British Grand Tourists on what to see on their travels in Italy - and what to take home. The Spencers met Hamilton on their tour to Italy in 1763-1764, possibly on the recommendation of 'Athenian' Stuart, an old friend of Hamilton's, now back in London completing the decoration to Spencer House. Hamilton acted as a guide to the Spencers, conducting Lady Spencer, for example, through the collections at the Palazzo Barberini, where she was greatly taken by the antique statuary. In 1765, not long after their return to England, the Spencers commissioned a painting from Hamilton, the subject of which was to be Agrippina with the ashes of Germanicus (Althorp, Northamptonshire). It has been argued that part of the motivation for the commission was as 'a sort of douceur to secure Hamilton's services' on the more important matter of acquiring capital Old Masters fit to grace the walls of the Great Room at Spencer House (Waterhouse, 1954, loc. cit.). This became Hamilton's mission over the next several years, as he travelled across Italy seeking out one after another potential acquisition. His letters to Lady Spencer document a number of attempts to secure big pictures serving all of the criteria of 'our purpose[:] size subject & preservation' (21 May 1766), attempts often plagued with difficulties - intrigues on the part of locals anxious not to lose their altarpieces, disagreements over prices, even delays due to export license applications. Hamilton travelled with an Italian artist, Ricciolini, who was at the ready to paint a copy of any picture that Hamilton bought for the Spencers, should this smooth the way for its acquisition with the prior owners. More than a year later, Hamilton had yet to secure a large picture by a major artist for Spencer House, writing 'something must be done now that I have engaged to serve my Lord, or I am resolved never to see England more, your Ladyship can non [sic] imagine the anxiety of mind I have, least I should appear careless in executing my Lord's commission' (11 April 1767). Finally, after nearly another year of frustration, Hamilton triumphed - and it had been well worth his patience and the wait. On 4 May 1768 he wrote of having 'at last found at Cesena two pictures of Guercino in every respect agreeable to my Lord Spencer's commission'. These works were 'painted in his last & most pleasing manner, viz. in the style of the Circumcision at Bologna or the Sibyl at the Capitol; one represents a King David, the other a Sibyl'. Hamilton lost no time in securing the pictures and shipping them to London:
As the pictures are in perfect preservation I have ordered a large roller to be made with a case in which they will remain suspended, after they are well secured with wax-cloth, canvass, etc. I propose to send them to Pesaro upon a stacino made with a network of cords to prevent any damage by jolting; from Pesaro I shall see them set out in the same manner for Civita Vecchia by the Furlo, so that by avoiding Rome, we shall save time, trouble and expense.
Knowing that the Spencers were also very anxious about having their pictures framed well - Lady Spencer had earlier written to stress 'My Lord would not have a frame made at Rome as it must be framed in the same Manner as the Pictures among which it will be placed here' (28 June 1766) - Hamilton sent the Spencers the precise dimensions of the two canvasses, 'so that no time may be lost in ordering the frame'--'When they are strained upon the stretching frame I would advise nailing a very thick slip of wood around the picture that nothing may be lost in the rabbit [rebate] of the frame, this ought to be mentioned to the framemaker' (4 May 1768). Indeed, the way the pictures were to be framed was of key importance. Stuart had designed the Great Room, which also served as the ballroom at Spencer House, specifically for the display of Spencer's Old Masters, hanging the walls with red damask, and the frame of the present picture was specially designed by Stuart to match the mouldings of the doorcases and window surrounds he had also designed for the room.