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The construction of artistic reputation in Seicento Bologna: Guido Reni and the Sirani

The critical receptions of Guido Reni, Giovanni Andrea Sirani, and Elisabetta Sirani suggest that in seventeenth‐century Bologna, technical brilliance was consistently valued more highly than iconographic invention. This essay assesses the differing critical fortunes of these three artists through the commentaries of the early writers, patterns of attribution (for drawings and paintings) and collecting, and economic rewards for their works. These varied types of evidence elucidate the relative roles of technical virtuosity, invention, and gender in formulating artistic reputations in early modern Italy. The relative inattention of sophisticated early critics to iconographic invention and the privileging of technical mastery and innovation suggest that the earlier widespread concern for elevating the intellectual status of painting was increasingly becoming a moot point.