After Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

The canvas has an old loose relining. The paint surface is generally secure and appears to be in good condition under a filthy, old, yellowed varnish. The figure of St John is particularly well preserved and remains largely untouched, other than by a few scattered retouchings. Most of the damage and restoration is confined to the background. There are some minor old scattered paint losses, most notably lower right, all are visible in the catalogue illustration. There are two old restored damages upper right in the background, one l shaped and approx 7 by 5 cm and the other vertical approx 8 cm long. A third horizontal old restored damage, of approx 6 cm long is visible to the right of John's hip. Inspection under UV light reveals retouching work to the aforementioned damages, upper left around the cross, lower left in the darks and around his calf and in the lower right corner as well as some other minor scattered retouchings. Offered in a stained wood and gilt frame in fair condition with some losses.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Few artists inspire the same awe or have so dramatically altered the course of Western painting as Michelangelo Merisi, better known by the name of his home town, Caravaggio. At around the age of twenty he moved from his native Lombardy to Rome where he worked for a while in the studio of Cavaliere d'Arpino, one of the city's leading artists. His earliest known works, such as the Boy with a Basket of Fruit in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, point to his precocious skill but show us that he was yet to develop the chiaroscuro technique for which he is so celebrated.¹  However, his first public commission for the side walls of the Contarelli chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in 1599 did introduce the world to his tenebrist style and established him as one of Rome's most important painters, winning him election to the Accademia di San Luca around 1600.

It was in the years that followed that Caravaggio painted his Saint John the Baptist, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas.²  The present painting, offered here for the first time on the market, is a period copy after Caravaggio's original which until 1943 was known only through another copy kept in the storerooms of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples.³  Caravaggio revisited the subject several times during his career but the present design is unusual in its iconography: whilst it preserves the asceticism traditionally associated with the Baptist, rather than depict a hardened desert-dweller announcing the coming of the Lord, John is portrayed as a pensive and introspective youth, already carrying a cross but devoid of the lamb which usually accompanies him.

A Saint Jerome, again in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, can also be dated to the first few years of the 1600s.⁴  Though this is clearly a study of old age rather than of youth, the works nevertheless share many features, not least the impact of the artist's chiaroscuro style. At this stage Caravaggio began to portray serious single figures illuminated by raking light from above (and in both these cases from the left) which is at once naturalistic and symbolic, an effect which enhances three-dimensionality and gives the figures a monumental presence. The drama of the scene is made more acute by the tenebrist setting which forces the viewer to focus on the protagonist and strips away the background, which in the present design is just alluded to by the discrete foliage. In both paintings the intensity is enhanced by the lack of movement in the balanced composition, and in the way the tight palette of sober pale colours is punctuated by the sumptuous red folds of the mantles.

The provenance of the Nelson-Atkins original is far from clear. The earliest mention of the painting seems to date from 1637 in the will of one of Caravaggio's most important patrons, Cardinal Ottavio Costa, whom we can assume commissioned the painting directly from the artist.⁵  Following his death the painting (along with other works by Guido Reni and Cavaliere d'Arpino) was to be sent to Albenga, a small town in Liguria where the Cardinal's family originated, and where an early copy can still be found in the Museo Diocesano.

Caravaggio fled to Malta in 1607, following his infamous murder of Ranuccio Tommasoni and subsequent escape from Rome. He had become acquainted with, and for a short time was a member of, the Knights of Malta. They were to commission work from him and remained particularly enamoured of his paintings, playing a further part in the history of the Saint John for they were the appointed heirs of Ottavio Costa's son, Abbot Antoniotto, who died in 1674. The family dismissed their claims to the inheritance and the case was eventually taken to the Sacra Romana Rota, the Church's highest court of law where a lengthy and complicated legal battle ensued. It is unclear whether the Baptist was still in Albenga at this stage but we must assume that it was one of the three paintings which the Knights finally succeeded in claiming from Costa's descendants in the early 18th century (and certainly before the death of Pietro Francesco Costa in 1723), and took to Malta. Presumably it was at this stage that the Albenga copy was made.

The painting's more recent history is less cloudy. It is said to have been purchased in Malta by James, 5th Baron Aston of Forfar (died 1751) in the early 18th century and passed by family descent to Sir Charles Chichester in Hampstead by 1923. In 1951 the work was sold to Agnew's in London who subsequently sold it to the Nelson-Atkins.




1.  See M. Marini, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Rome 1987, pp. 363-64, cat. no. 6, reproduced in colour p. 116.
2.  See Marini, op. cit., pp. 212-13, cat. no. 54, reproduced in colour p. 213.
3.  For a full discussion of the painting, its provenance, and other known copies see E.W. Rowlands, Italian Paintings 1300-1800, The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Milan 1996, pp. 212-226.
4.  Marini, ibid., pp. 489-90, cat. no 65, reproduced in colour p. 239.
5.  Costa is known to have owned at least four other works by Caravaggio: a Judith Decapitating Holofernes now in the Palazzo Barberini, Rome; a Saint Francis (untraced); a Saint Francis now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; and a Martha and Mary in the Detroit Institute of Art.