Rare Guercino acquired by Kimbell Art Museum
- April 30, 2010 13:38
In memory of Edmund P. Pillsbury, director of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1980 to 1998, a 17th-century Italian baroque jewel has been added to the museum's collection. "Christ and the Woman of Samaria", c. 1619-20, by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, is a rare early work with a dramatic depiction of Jesus asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water from Jacob's well.
The work comes to the Fort Worth, Texas, museum from a European private collection through New York art dealer Adam Williams. Art experts speculate the painting, perhaps the best one by Guercino on the market in decades, brought a record price soundly upwards of $10 million.