NEAPOLITAN FOLLOWER OF MICHELANGELO MERISI, CALLED CARAVAGGIO | Saint John the Baptist drinking from a spring

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has a recent lining applied with glue. The surface is stable. The paint layer is clean and retouched. It can be seen that the highlighted areas of the face, figure and sheep are in good condition. Under ultraviolet light, very accurate retouches are visible in small spots throughout the light colors, but they are only numerous in the elbow and wrist of the figure. There are various retouches in the darker colors addressing small losses and thinness. There are larger retouches addressing breaks in the canvas in the upper center, above the arm, and in the upper right. In the lower right corner, there is an area measuring 2 by 3 inches next to the ankle that has been restored. There are retouches on the edges, in some areas extending into the composition by about 1 inch. The amount of retouching is not necessarily unusual for a painting of this kind, and the work should be hung in its current state.
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Although an attribution for this striking canvas remains elusive, its quality points to a rather accomplished hand. Here, Saint John the Baptist is seen in full length as he bends to drink from the spring water that trickles into the composition at left.  With his reed cross resting on a stony ledge in front of him, he leans forward, using both arms to support his weight.  A dramatic light source from above illuminates his athletic figure, drawing attention towards his youthful face, his lithe musculature, the hairs of the animal skin wrapped around his waist, and his dynamic, yet balanced, pose.  Beside him appears a lamb that drinks from a stream of water running along the edge of the lower foreground.  This remarkable composition is known elsewhere, both in full and half-length iterations.  Another full-length version is today in a private collection,¹ and two half-lengths in varying formats can be found in the Bonello Collection² and in a private Roman collection.³  While the authorship and the primacy of the works within this group remain largely under debate among scholars, what seems more certain is that they all relate to a painting by Caravaggio, likely one of his last, that was left in Naples. 

In May 1606, after Caravaggio killed one of his opponents following a tennis match, he fled Rome, where he had worked for most of his career.  In the years to follow, he travelled to Naples, Malta, and Sicily, arriving back in Naples in the fall of 1609 and awaited a papal pardon that would allow his return to Rome. In July 1610, he set sail to Rome with group of paintings for his patrons, two of which depicted St. John.  His mistaken arrest in the Port of Palo, just twenty miles from his final destination, thwarted his travels, however.  By the time he was released from jail, his boat had sailed back to Naples along with all of the paintings on board, and Caravaggio died just a few days later. 

Some scholars believe the painting that inspired the present composition was one of the works intended for his Roman patrons but sent back on the boat to Naples without Caravaggio, while others believe that it was left in Naples before Caravaggio set sail to Rome.  Regardless, the as yet unidentified prime version, seems to have been known to artists in Naples, as it proved very successful and inspired a number of examples among Caravaggio’s Neapolitan followers.   

1.  Oil on canvas, 127 by 95 cm., last sold at auction, London, Sotheby’s, 29 October 1998, lot 137.  See S. Schütze, Caravaggio: The Complete Works, Cologne 2009, p. 295-296, cat. no. 83b, reproduced

2.  Oil on canvas, 100 by 73 cm., on permanent loan to the National Gallery of Malta.  ibid., p. 295, cat. no. 83, reproduced.

3.  Oil on canvas, 45.5 by 65.5 cm., ibid., p. 295, cat. no. 83a, reproduced.