Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (called Il Guercino)
Italian, 1591–1666
The documentation of Guercino's works is remarkably good, because he kept a record of payments for his commissions in an account book (Libro dei conti) from 1629 until his death in 1666. Additionally, his nephews' family preserved many paintings and drawings until at least 1719, when an inventory was made. Earlier, the seventeenth-century biographer Malvasia had also published a list of Guercino's paintings in the Casa Gennari.