Saint Anthony of Padua with the Christ Child

A preliminary design for Guercino's print, Saint Anthony of Padua (Turner, op. cit., fig. 79). The present drawing reflects an earlier stage of composition than another preparatory drawing now in a private collection in the United States (Turner, op. cit., fig. 81). It differs from both the later drawing and the etching in showing Saint Anthony accompanied by the Christ Child, and in its inclusion of the short text on the pedestal, recording Saint Anthony's miraculous cure of a woman possessed by a demon. This pedestal, without the text, is retained in the drawing in America, but removed in the etching. Turner suggests that, in considering a very different compositional arrangement alongside the simpler format which he eventually chose for the print, Guercino was undertaking the same kind of preparatory work for his etching as he did for his paintings. The print is datable to the mid-1630s, and the present drawing can be dated to approximately the same period.