Gallery Label Luigi Gonzaga (born 1568) was the eldest son of Ferdinando Gonzaga, marquis of Castiglione. Determined to enter the Church, he resigned the marquisate in favor of his younger brother, and in 1585 entered the Jesuit novitiate in Rome, where he devoted himself to the care of the poor until he died of the plague in 1591. He was beatified in 1621 and canonized in 1726. Guercino's altarpiece was commissioned for the church of the Theatines at Guastalla in 1650 by Don Ferrante III Gonzaga, duke of Guastalla. An angel holds a heavenly wreath over the saint's head, while at his feet is a sheaf of lilies, representing chastity, and a crown, symbolizing the marquisate he had renounced.
Notes In 1662 Guercino painted another altarpiece of this subject. Commissioned by the Prince of Massa for the city of Palermo, this picture has since disappeared. Judging from the price (370 scudi), it appears to have been smaller than the altarpiece for Guastalla.
Provenance commissioned by Quaranta Sampieri on behalf of Don Ferrante III, Duke of Guastalla, for an altar in the right transept of the church of Santa Maria del Castello, Guastalla (by 1651–1805; valued at 500 scudi; expropriated in 1805 by Moreau, the French General Administrator for Guastalla); Mérédic-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint Méry, Parma (1805–06); the painter Gaetano Callani, Parma (1806; transferred to Junot); Jean Andache Junot, duc d'Abrantes, Paris (1806–d. 1813; his sale, Christie's London, May 4, 1818, no. 58, for 190 gns. to Woodburn); [Woodburn, from 1818]; [Sanquirico, Milan, until 1821; sold to Grant for 300 Luigi and 3 horses with their saddles; equivalent to 400 Louis d'or]; John Grant, Kilgraston, Scotland (1821–d. 1873); his son, Charles Thomas Constantine Grant, Kilgraston, Scotland (1873–d. 1891; sale, T. Chapman & Son, Edinburgh, April 15, 1882, no. 87, for £100, bought in); his son, John Patrick Nisbet Hamilton Grant, Biel Dunbar, Scotland (1891–d. 1950); his cousin, Basil Charles Barrington Brooke (1950–57; sold through Agnew, London, to Wrightsman); Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, New York (1957–73; cat., 1973, no. 13)
Exhibition History Edinburgh. Royal Institution. "Third Exhibition of Ancient Pictures," April 17, 1826, no. 36 (lent by John Grant).
London. British Institution. June 1857, no. 4 (lent by John Grant).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1873, no. 225 (lent by John Grant).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," March 26–May 24, 1987, not in catalogue.
References Carlo Cesare Malvasia. Felsina pittrice: vite de' pittori bolognesi . Bologna, 1678, vol. 2, p. 378, lists an altarpiece representing the Blessed Luigi Gonzaga executed by Guercino in 1650 for Guastalla.San Luigi di Gonzaga and Guercino . Bruges, 1882, pp. 7–8, ill., records that the picture was bought by John Grant about 1818 in Milan, where it had been "rolled up in a back shop", and that Grant returned to Kilgraston "much in dread of his father's welcome, for he was still then a minor"; adds that "during the burning of Kilgraston in 1872, the picture was cut out of its frame by the late John Grant, Esquire, with the aid of two servants, and was carried out of the house before the roof fell in".Art News 65 (February 1967), p. 60, fig. 5, describes the picture's commemoration of an almost contemporary religious event as "an eloquent example of the programmatic art of the Counter-Reformation which turned from traditional subjects to celebrate the great events and deeds of the Living Church"; adds that the picture may in fact have promoted the subsequent canonization of the saint in 1726.Apollo 90 (September 1969), p. 233, ill. (color), suggests that after its removal from the Church of Guastalla in 1802 by the French general Moreau de Saint Méry, the picture failed to enter the Musée Napoleon on account of its large size and remained in Milan until 1821.Letter to Evertt Fahey . August 30, 1970, discusses the picture's provenance, suggesting that after its removal from Guastalla by Moreau in 1805 the work passed to Moreau's successor, Maréchal Junot—the latter having owned such a picture and sold it at Christie's, London, 1818; notes that Junot's collection was first published in a Christie's sale catalogue dated June 17, 1817, but that this sale appears to have been cancelled en bloc; adds that when Junot's pictures were sold in 1818, the Guercino fetched by far the highest price (190 gns.); proposes that the picture's buyer, Thomas Woodburn, may have been bidding on behalf of John Grant, the picture passing to Sanquirico in Milan after Francis Grant disclaimed his son's purchase; regards it as reasonable that, despite its large dimensions, the Wrightsman picture could have travelled to Paris in 1806, London in 1817, Milan in 1818, and Kilgraston in 1821; concludes that the Guastalla altarpiece and the Wrightsman picture must be one and the same, and that the dicrepency in scale between the present picture and the dimensions published in the Christie's sale catalogue may be due to the latter measurements having been taken while the painting was still in its frame, with the width misprinted as 6 (feet) instead of 8.in "Paintings, Drawings." The Wrightsman Collection . 5, [New York], 1973, pp. 117–25, ill. (overall in color and details), suggests that Don Ferrante III, a member of a cadet branch of Luigi Gonzaga's family, may have ordered the painting to promote the Saint's canonization; notes that the picture does not illustrate a specific event in the Saint's life, but telescopes different moments into a single image of Luigi's dedictation; observes that the coronet, flowered wreath, and lilies appear in a pair of engravings of San Luigi made about 1607 by Anton and Jerome Wierix, and that it is possible Guercino referred to these or similar engravings in designing his altarpiece a half-century later; compares the clothing and general posture of the angel in the Wrightsman picture to that in Guercino's "Guardian Angel" altarpiece, executed in 1642 for Fano (now Museo Civico Malatestiano); suggests that the fortified buildings visible in the picture's landscape may represent the town of Guastalla.Civilità Mantovana 10 (1976), pp. 170–81, ill., relates the iconography of Guercino's "Vocation of San Luigi" to a specifically Mantovan tradition, finding precedants for the white blossoms on the angel's wreath, and pearls on the saint's coronet, in a painting attributed to Ippolito Andreasi (Mantova, 1548–1698) at the Museo Storico Aloisiana di Castiglione della Stivere; discounts the Wierix engravings as a possible sources for Guercino's imagery.Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France . Ithaca, N.Y., 1976, p. 32 n. 42.Dipinti "reggiani" del Bonone e del Guercino (pittura et documenti) . Exh. cat.Reggio Emilia, 1982, pp. 113–14, no. 23, ill. (color), states that Junot acquired the picture in 1806 from the painter Gaetano Callani.I dipinti del Guercino . Rome, 1988, p. 346, no. 276, ill. (color), notes that the canvas was cut down at the top, possibly in 1872, when a fire at Kilgraston caused the work to be hurriedly removed from its frame.The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle . New York, 1989, p. 72, notes that an almost life-size red chalk drawing by Guercino at Windsor Castle (no. 128, "Head of a Youth") appears to be a study for the head of Saint Luigi Gonzaga in the Wrightsman picture—recording a stage in the preparation of the altarpiece when the artist intended to represent the Saint looking upwards.Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 1991), pp. 38–40, ill. (color), identifies the white surplice Luigi wears over the high-collared black habit of the Society of Jesus as a reference to his ordination as door-keeper, lector, exorcist and acolyte—the four minor orders that he received in the early months of 1588.Guercino: catalogo completo dei dipinti . Florence, 1991, p. 272, no. 263, ill. (color).Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629–66 . Bologna, 1997, p. 146, records payments received from Quaranta Sampieri for an altarpiece representing the Blessed Luigi Gonzaga with a glory of angels, for a church in Guastalla; on March 29, 1650, an advance payment of L 473; on April 24, 1651, a further payment of L 1000; and on April 27, 1651, a final payment of L 500.Historienmalerei und Heiligsprechung: Pierre Subleyras (1699–1749) und das Bild für den Papst im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert . Munich, 2000, pp. 275, 318, fig. 158.in The Wrightsman Pictures . New York, 2005, pp. 32–34, no. 8, ill. (color).
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