Seated Woman Reading a Book, with Two Putti Holding Hourglasses (Allegory of Memory),

1624–25

Largely self-taught, Guercino was a brilliant and versatile draftsman who produced thousands of studies for religious and secular works throughout his long and successful career, most of which he spent in his native Cento and Bologna after a short stay in Rome (1621–23). These two sketches exemplify Guercino’s exploitation of economical means for maximum expression, combining elegant yet robust contours with subtly varied washes to convey the essence of the subject with dramatic lighting and spatial effects. The horizontal study for the Martyrdom is one of four radically different treatments of the central motif in the final, vertical altarpiece in the Church of San Martino, Siena. Using the paper as a stage for experimentation, Guercino dashes off strokes of ink and splashes of wash for this conception of the harrowing scene, which contrasts the yielding body and delicate features of the suffering saint with the determined stances and shadowy profiles of the two torturers who are flaying him alive.