King David and the Wise Women

Four works by the great Italian artist Guercino. This gem of a catalog accompanies an exhibition at Waddesdon Manor on one of the great painters of seventeenth-century Italy, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (1591-1666). It brings together for the first time Waddesdon's King David with three paintings of sibyls (female prophets from classical antiquity) on loan from the National Gallery and the Royal Collection. Readers and viewers alike will be immersed in the poetry, color, and majesty of these four works, which were all painted by Guercino in the year 1651. This is the first time the paintings have been seen together. The catalog investigates the relationship between David, the Jewish patriarch, psalmist, and prophet whom Christians believed prefigured Christ, and the four pagan seers who supposedly foretold Christ's birth. Guercino's brilliant depiction of fabrics and materials-silk, flesh and ermine, paper, wood, and stone-evokes ideas about inspiration and contemplation, sight and foresight, poetry and prophecy.