St. John the Baptist

On a clear, sunny day, the sky barely brushed by light cloud, St. John the Baptist appears in majesty, his athletic body half-naked, his gaze firm. There is no hint of the time he has spent in penitence and privation in the desert as described in the Gospels; on the contrary, the image evokes the triumph, the imminent happy conclusion of the Forerunner’s mission, thus the arrival of the Messiah, the lamb “who taketh away the sins of the world”, alluded to by the animal at his side chewing on a tuft of grass that has sprung miraculously from the rocks. A rock serves as the saint’s natural “throne”, shaped for that use by the presence of steps at the bottom and a long surface on which the saint is seated and on which there lies a crimson cloth that he has doffed in favour of the traditional camelhair garment mentioned in the Scriptures. On the right, we see a peaceful landscape with assorted vegetation and a river, possibly an allusion to the River Jordan. St. John the Baptist’s features and gestures are those of the 16th-century painting tradition harking back to the prototypes of Raphael and Giulio Romano, revisited through the new, updated filter of Bolognese classicism and through a meditated handling of light that still broadly reflects Caravaggio’s influence. The saint’s right hand points to an unidentified area beyond the painted space, becoming a temporal as well as a physical indication of the future salvation that will come from elsewhere, or rather, from “others”, thus echoing the words in the Gospel: “I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him” (John 3:28). Everything here alludes to John’s mission and to his symbolic function as marking the break between two eras.

The picture ranks as one of Giovanni Baglione’s absolute masterpieces, painted at a moment of the loftiest expression in his artistic career. It appeared at an auction held by Sotheby’s in London¹, correctly attributed to this Roman painter and dated to the very early years of the 17th century, although in the expertise produced by Maryvelma Smith O’Neil on that occasion, she was inclined to postdate it to the early 1620s. It was only later, when the painting had been purchased by antique dealer and collector Otto Naumann in New York, that restoration revealed the date 1610 and the painter’s signature, with the usual “misprint” switching the letters “l” and “g” in his surname and with the knightly title (EQ[UES]) that invariably tended to accompany the artist’s signature after 1606². During cleaning, it was chosen to maintain the inscription «CARRACCI» which, though false, is old and is indicative for its documentary value and, possibly, also for its implicit considerations of a stylistic nature, which we shall examine at greater length below. On Naumann’s death, the painting, together with a selection of other pieces from his collection, was once again auctioned by Sotheby’s, this time in their New York showroom, where it was acquired by the Fundação Gaudium Magnum based in Lisbon.

The painting’s superb quality, its large format and its monumental composition all point to its being the product of a prestigious commission associated with some ranking figure in the Rome of Baglione’s day, or at any rate, a painting intended for a collector of the highest level. In the years around 1610, Baglione is recorded as entertaining relations with many prospective candidates, including a number of leading members of the Sacred College, and even with the papal Borghese family. It was precisely in August 1610 that he took part in decorating the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore, directly commissioned by the pope, as one of a team of painters coordinated by the Cavalier d’Arpino that included Ludovico Cardi, known as Cigoli, and Guido Reni. Baglione was also commissioned individually to fresco the small votive chapel within the larger chapel dedicated to Santa Francesca Romana. Alongside the name of the Borghese family, other projects of importance in those years included work commissioned by Cardinals Ferdinando Gonzaga, Paolo Emilio Sfondrati and Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto (1571–1623). Precisely this latter figure, a reputed patron of artists and a sophisticated collector, has been held up as the most likely prelate to have commissioned the painting under discussion in this paper. Yet documentation in our possession and the existence of several paintings by Baglione depicting St. John the Baptist allow a number of different interpretations, which it is worth briefly summarising and examining here.

In August 1610, Montalto paid Baglione for a painting depicting precisely St. John the Baptist. A payment order discovered by Belinda Granata³ reads as follows: «M[essrs.] Herrera please pay to the Kni[gh]t Baglione painter 100 s[cudi] in cash as the price for a picture of St. John, that he has made for the adornment of our home, and debit the sum to us. From the Chancery on 3 August 1610». Montalto’s immense satisfaction with the painting is implicitly confirmed by Baglione’s involvement in the cardinal’s most ambitious enterprise yet, consisting of a cycle of ten oval pictures with stories from the life of Alexander the Great executed between 1614 and 1615. The project involved a substantial group of painters, mostly belonging to the Bolognese school – Francesco Albani, Sisto Badalocchio, Antonio Carracci, Domenichino, Antiveduto Gramatica and Giovanni Lanfranco –, with Baglione being commissioned to paint the scene depicting Parmenion Visiting Alexander the Great Before the Battle of Gaugamela (now in a private collection).

Returning to the payment of 1610, the substantial sum involved and the prestige of the occasion would appear to match a passage in the artist’s autobiography published in 1642, to the effect that: «[Baglione] Made for Cardinal Alessandro Montalto in oil a s[aint] Jo[hn] the Baptist from life, and he keeps it in the Pleasaunce in his vineyard in s[aint] Mary Major»⁴. This brief mention also offers us two valuable pieces of information, the first stylistic – namely, that the picture was painted “from life” – and the second concerning its whereabouts, i.e. in the cardinal’s residence in the neighbourhood of Santa Maria Maggiore, also known as Villa Montalto a Termini. Further evidence that the picture described in the payment in 1610 may well be the one that hung in the Villa Montalto residence, in addition to Baglione’s own explicit mention of it, can be gleaned from its association, as early as in the payment order itself, with a Dream of Joseph commissioned from Ludovico Cigoli, also for 100 scudi (albeit “in gold”)⁵. The two pictures are once again mentioned in the same breath in Fioravante Martinelli’s guide of 1660–63⁶. Belinda Granata has suggested that the Cigoli painting formerly owned by Montalto is the picture now hanging in Burghley House in England⁷. It measures 150.5 × 130 cm, thus Baglione’s painting would have to be more or less the same size.

In the inventories of Cardinal Montalto’s heirs, in particular in the list of fideicommissary paintings held in trust by a “nephew” (also a cardinal) named Francesco Peretti (1595–1655), we find a St. John the Baptist by Baglione hanging in the pleasaunce as an overdoor, although it is considerably smaller, measuring “some 6 palms”, which would make it only 135 cm. in height. These dimensions, even allowing for potential errors of a few centimetres when the picture was measured, tend to rule out the possibility that it might be the painting under discussion here, which is almost 60 cm. taller. Moreover, even allowing for the fact that we do not know the pleasaunce’s size, it seems highly unlikely that a painting almost two metres in height would be displayed as an overdoor. We also need to consider the fact that, as we have seen, Baglione painted several pictures portraying St. John the Baptist. Without taking into consideration those whose size makes them incompatible or whose documented provenance rules them out, there are at least three paintings that scholars consider to be potentially related to the payment of 1610 and the inventory of 1655 on the basis of their size on toile empereur, in other words, measuring “roughly” six Roman palms. They are a painting that recently appeared on the antique market in the Galleria Porcini,⁸ a version now in private collection formerly held by June Fell and recently shown at an exhibition (fig. 1)⁹ and a version in the Alexandros Soutzos Museum in Athens (fig. 2)¹⁰.

Regardless of the intrinsic interest of these works by Baglione – which appear, in any event, to date more realistically to some time after 1610 –, it needs to be said that the picture now in Lisbon is, without any doubt, of considerably higher quality, as well as being the only St. John the Baptist that can be associated with a payment of 100 scudi and with such a demanding and meticulous patron as Cardinal Montalto. The perfect match between the date of the Montalto payment and the date on the painting, in addition to its monumental composition, has prompted Antonio Vannugli to argue, somewhat simplistically, in favour of that definitive identification, suggesting that the painting formerly in the pleasaunce was the victim of a gross error when it was measured¹¹. More recently, Francesco Gatta has, in a more balanced argument, surmised the existence of two paintings depicting St. John the Baptist painted by Baglione for the Peretti-Montalto cousins’ circle of patronage¹². According to his reconstruction, an initial St. John the Baptist “from life”, painted for Alessandro Peretti Montalto in 1610 and proudly mentioned in the artist’s autobiography, seems to reflect the Lisbon picture in terms of both “commitment” and style. Gatta suggests that it also appears in the inventory of 1655, not as the overdoor picture 6 palms high but under number “76”, with no mention of the painter, as a «picture with the young St. John the Baptist in the desert, who is pointing with his right hand to the sky […] 9 ⅔ palms high, 6 ½ palms wide»¹³ in the palazzo in San Lorenzo in Lucina, whither it may have been moved on Montalto’s death in 1623. The painting may certainly have been moved, and Baglione may not have been informed of the move or he may have ignored it, confirming its original position in the Pleasaunce again in his autobiography in 1642. However, while the description is very close to the iconography of the painting under discussion here, the absence of a lamb and the difference in size – overestimated in this instance – are factors that argue against unreservedly accepting Gatta’s reconstruction. In addition to which, it is difficult to see why Baglione’s name would have been omitted, given that it is mentioned in the inventory of 1655 in connection with the “minor” painting – in other words, the overdoor 6 palms high – but forgotten in connection with the “major” painting, although, of course, the signature may already have been illegible at that date. In any event, the large format painting – number “76” in the inventory of 1655 – is unquestionably the same as the picture sold after Peretti’s death to a certain Giuseppe Ghislieri, together with a further four paintings, for a mere 48 scudi¹⁴, as mentioned in the Libro Mastro or ledger recording the dispersal of the cardinal’s property¹⁵.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Francesco Peretti’s collection comprised parts of the collections both of Cardinal Alessandro Montalto and of his paternal uncle Cardinal Andrea Baroni Peretti (1572–1629), another of Baglione’s patrons mentioned in the artist’s autobiography¹⁶. The list of 102 paintings bequeathed by Andrea to his nephew Francesco includes four pictures attributed to Baglione, although their current whereabouts are unknown, and in any case, none of them depict St. John the Baptist.

Summarising the entire, complex affair while maintaining a legitimate margin of doubt, and allowing for the existence of various paintings by Baglione depicting St. John the Baptist as well as for the possibility that other similar paintings may resurface in the future, it seems prudent today to remain open to various different solutions. Quite apart from the documentary aspect, it has to be said that, of all Baglione’s paintings discussed hitherto, only the Fundação Gaudium Magnum St. John the Baptist has the specific weight to match such an illustrious patron as Montalto and a price tag of 100 scudi¹⁷. Nothing prevents us from thinking that the painting paid for in 1610 is the picture under discussion here, that it left the Montalto collection at an unspecified date, albeit prior to 1655, and that that collection continued to own a painting in a smaller format, namely the one mentioned by Baglione and in subsequent documentation as hanging in the Villa di Termini.

Quite apart from the prospective identification of its provenance, at any rate, the definite date of 1610 sets the painting in the middle of Baglione’s most successful period, when he enjoyed solid ties with some of Rome’s leading collectors, the most important of whom was Paolo Emilio Sfondrati who commissioned the artist to paint altarpieces (starting with an altarpiece for the titular church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in 1600) and sophisticated paintings for the adornment of his private abode (The Ecstasy of St. Francis, 1601), and who was the first, crucial middleman between Baglione and the Borghese family¹⁸. Baglione had also recently been engaged in work outside the Eternal City, as we can see, for example, from the altarpieces that he painted for Naples (Pio Monte della Misericordia, 1608) and Perugia (Cathedral, 1608)¹⁹.

From a stylistic standpoint, the definite date of 1610 sheds light on a crucial moment in the painter’s career, in which he achieved a more mature synthesis of the various stylistic influences that had built up and overlapped in his output in the early years of the 17th century. Baglione revisited formulae and genres of unquestioned popularity, most of them already tried and tested, by reusing drawings and cartoons from his repertoire. We can detect compositional similarities in St. John the Baptist’s left leg, which stands slightly above the rock on which it rests, with his St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist (private collection, 1606), while the position of the saint’s right arm can almost be superimposed on that of Christ Meditating on the Passion painted in 1606 (fig. 3). Equally indicative is the parallel that can be drawn between the landscape in our painting and the landscape in St. Margaret (Rome, Gallerie Nazionali d’arte antica, Palazzo Barberini, inv. no. 1373) which would also point, for that large painting on copper, to a date astride the first and second decades of the 17th century.

The quality of Baglione’s work continues to be high in the chiaroscuro passages of the shadows on the figure’s face and flesh, but also in his handling of various materials such as the lamb’s fleece, the satin of the cloak, the entwined rope and the camelskin. Equally typical of Baglione’s style, in fact almost a second signature on the painting, are the features and hair of the young model, with his thick, chestnut locks barely covering his ears and forehead, his thick eyelids and his straight, well-shaped and slightly pointed nose.

If we wish to proceed even further in our interpretation of the painting’s stylistic features and to see this painting as an ambitious display on Baglione’s part of his expertise in keeping up to date with the latest developments that the art scene in Rome had to offer at the end of the 1610s, we may be able to detect a well-balanced combination of the two main stylistic tendencies of the time: on the one hand, the taste for classicism in the Bolognese sense; and on the other, a constant yet increasingly conscious and mediated interest in the legacy of Caravaggio, who died in 1610, the very year in which the picture was painted. On the classicising front, the unprecedented effort to cause the figure and landscape to interact points to Baglione directly reflecting on a prototype by Annibale Carracci – perhaps the painting on copper now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, dated c. 1600 –, possibly mediated by his closest circle and brought up to date by his new relationship with Reni, which was unquestionably facilitated by the Paolina Chapel commission mentioned above. In that sense, the false (but period) inscription referring to “Carracci” is indicative and may help us to identify the work, under that name, in some old inventory. The example of Caravaggio, on the other hand, seems unexceptionable if we compare the painting with the latter’s St. John the Baptist now in Kansas City, which Baglione certainly knew, despite the fact that it was in the “private” collection of Ottavio Costa and difficult to approach. The Costa painting’s influence can be detected in the new monumentality and in the figure’s heroic aspect, yet without Baglione succeeding in fully capturing their complex psychological implications, given that he was attracted primarily by the Christian hero’s more “Apollonian” aspects.

The painting has also been associated with a drawing whose current whereabouts are unknown (fig. 4)²⁰ but whose composition is virtually identical aside from a handful of variations in the mountainous depiction of the landscape.