Description
This large altarpiece was in the artist's studio when he died, and parts of the composition appear incomplete. Some figures lack color, and Reni never finished the wooden structure. The silvery ground layer appears everywhere, as do his changes to the composition, such as the dog's head above the angel's right knee and the adjustment to Christ's right leg, covered in blue. However, Reni's death does not fully explain the unfinished quality. Toward the end of his career, he increasingly painted in a loose and sketchy manner—popular with collectors at the time—an approach implying that concrete forms could never depict the ideal, spiritual world Reni aimed to present.
Provenance
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (1969-); (P.&D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., London), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1 (by 1968-1969); Corsini Collection, Florence, to Colnaghi 1 (Probably 1880-by 1968); Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection, Rome, by descent to the Corsini collection (Probably 1812-1880); Cardinal Francesco Barberini [1597 –1679] by inheritance within the Barberini family, Barberini Palace, Rome, by descent to the Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection 1 (1645-1812)
Accession Number
1969.132
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 378 x 280.5 x 10.5 cm (148 13/16 x 110 7/16 x 4 1/8 in.); Unframed: 367.3 x 268.6 cm (144 5/8 x 105 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas Italian
Background & Context
Background Story
Guido Reni (1575-1642) was a Bolognese painter known for the idealized, classical manner that makes him the most accomplished painter of the classical Baroque tradition. Adoration of the Magi from 1642, the year of Reni's death, depicts the biblical episode in which the three Magi come to worship the newborn Christ in the idealized, classical manner that distinguishes Reni's best religious paintings from the more dramatic work of his contemporaries. The 1642 date makes this one of Reni's last paintings, produced in the year of his death, and it shows the idealized, classical manner that he maintained throughout his career even in his final year.
Cultural Impact
Adoration of the Magi is important in the history of Baroque painting because it demonstrates the idealized, classical manner that Reni maintained throughout his career, even in his final year. Reni's idealized manner—combining classical beauty with religious devotion—represented an important alternative to the dramatic Baroque of Caravaggio and his followers, and the 1642 painting shows this alternative at the end of Reni's career, when he was still producing idealized religious paintings in the classical manner that had made him one of the most influential painters in Europe.
Why It Matters
Adoration of the Magi is Reni's classical Baroque at its final moment: the biblical episode rendered in the idealized manner that he maintained throughout his career, even in the year of his death. The 1642 painting shows the most accomplished painter of the classical Baroque tradition producing idealized religious painting at the end of his career.
