Study of an angel (recto); Study of two angels (verso)

In 1780 Gaetano Gandolfi painted an altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception for the main altar of the Church of Santa Maria Labarum Coeli in Bologna (fig. 1). The studies on the recto and the verso of this sheet are for the angels flanking the Virgin at top. The church, founded in the 13th Century, was rebuilt and refurbished around 1780 when the altarpiece was commissioned. The Bolognese writer and chronicler Marcello Oretti (1714-1787), a contemporary of Gaetano Gandolfi, reveals that the patrons of the church rejected the painting because it was considered too elaborate and the depiction of the Virgin unflattering (Bagni, op. cit., p. 303). Gandolfi had to take the painting back to the studio and change the appearance of the Virgin.

Fig. 1. Gaetano Gandolfi, Immaculate Conception. Church of Santa Maria Labarum Coeli, Bologna.