In his book Felsina Pittrice (Bologna Painter), Carlo Cesare Malvasia wrote that Guercino created various works for his own home, including “four paintings depicting Mary Magdalene, Paul of Thebes, John the Baptist and Jerome.  
Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy and Saint Paul the Hermit fed by a crow while in the desert to escape capture, are the two canvases exhibited here. The Saint John the Baptist is now preserved in a private collection in New York but all traces have been lost of the Saint Jerome, known only through a few copies. The horizontal format of this series of saints seems to confirm Malvasia's indication regarding their domestic use. In the works of his late maturity, reflected more deeply on Guido Reni’s classicism, led him to a new tranquillity in the gestures, a simplification of the forms and the immersion of the figures in a diaphanous atmosphere rendered with pastel shades while preserving the typical naturalism and emotional involvement. As Denis Mahon wrote: “Guercino seeks to combine monumentality with lightness, romanticism with intimacy, the search for the ideal with human naturalness; and he does it with a delicacy of touch and sensitivity to colour that are truly characteristic.”