Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Il Baciccio

Slightly discoloured down left and right edges. One or two very minor light stains. Otherwise very good and fresh.
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This sheet is preparatory for Gaulli's painting of circa 1693-4, The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, in the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome (fig. 1).¹  The painting is most likely to be a highly finished modello for the altarpiece of the same subject in the church of Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome, commissioned by Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri.  The latter is much larger in scale, and has a number of differences in the poses of Zacharias and other figures, which may have been changed at the patron's suggestion.  An autograph replica of the Campitelli painting is in Holkham Hall, Norfolk.²

Eighteen further drawings relate to the composition, including eight for the Accademia painting, of which four are studies for the figure of Zacharias, like the head on the present sheet.  The studies are a wonderful illustration of Gaulli's working method, consisting of one study of the pose, made from a nude model, one clothed figure study, and two separate studies of parts of his drapery.  In this sheet, Gaulli focuses on Zacharias' expression and left foot (which in the painting is hidden by drapery), in addition to the exact positioning of the hands of other figures.³

1. See F. Petrucci, Baciccio: Giovan Battista Gaulli 1639-1709, Rome 2009, p. 547, cat. no. C22a
2. Ibid., pp. 546, 548, cat. nos. C22, C22b
3. D. Graf, Die Handzeichnungen von Guglielmo Cortese und Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Düsseldorf 1976, vol. I, pp. 129-131, cat. nos. 388-395, illustrated vol. II, pp. 236-242