Landscape with Country Dance

Ladies and villagers, distinguished by their different styles of clothes and headwear, are gathered in a circle to take part in a dance, accompanied by the music of lute and viola, in the centre of a clearing, next to a stream. The calm atmosphere is echoed in the landscape behind, with soft rolling hills surmounted by small villages and a castle, and a green valley that provides perspective depth and leads to the sea, under a darkening sky, against which stand out – in an unexpected divertissement – two life-size flies (life-size for the viewer, not for the figures in the painting). Anyone who notices them, in the top right corner, is bound to try and brush them away, only to be embarrassed by the deception, to the greater glory of Guido’s art, and his outstanding skill.

The Dance is a work that went on a long journey before finally returning to its place of origin. 

Documented in the Borghese collection since the time of the cardinal-nephew Scipione, founder of the Villa, it was initially attributed to Francesco Albani but already in 1650 was correctly assigned to the “divine” Reni and recorded, by the consignee of the Villa Jacomo Manilli, among the works exhibited in the so-called Room of the Three Graces, today Room IX. Still recognized as belonging to the Borghese family at the end of the 17th century, it was kept in the Palazzo di Campo Marzio, where it was still mentioned as residing at the end of the 19th century. It was subsequently sold and passed through the hands of various collectors before reappearing on the London antiques market in 2008. Since then, studies have reliably reassigned the work to the artist and have identified its scope and specific features in relation to the genre of landscape painting, in particular in Rome and in the years of the artist’s first stay, between 1601 and 1614. The year 2008 also marked the beginning of its journey back to its first home, the Casino della Villa Pinciana, today Galleria Borghese, where since December 2020 it has been on show in the Helen and Paris Room (XIX) on the picture gallery floor, alongside the works of Domenichino, the Carraccis and Lanfranco, like Reni from Emilia, with whom the artist shared experiences and art in Rome.