Guido Reni, “divine” painter and prosaic business leader

Before the crisis which forced him to reduce his workforce, the workshop of Jeff Koons, one of the most bankable contemporary visual artists on a global scale, was made up of around a hundred regular assistants. Not bad for an art SME, a former 1500 m² factory not far from Manhattan, where the Ballon Dog and others Tulipsfake balloons but real high-tech sculptures. However, this is little compared to the workshop of Guido Reni (1585-1642). Through an original exhibition, the Museum of Fine Arts of Orléans and its curator for ancient collections, Corentin Dury, show that in Bologna this painter, who was one of the most sought after at European courts in the first half of the 17th century^e century, held double the number of employees under its control!

First in Rome, then in the flourishing Emilian capital, precisely Via delle Pescherie, this mannerist with his always full order book had a…