San Giovanni Battista (1508-1519)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

San Giovanni Battista (St John the Baptist)
c.15081519
Oil on walnut panel, 72.9 x 56.3 cm
Musée du LouvreParis

This painting was probably designed around 1508 and kept by Leonardo da Vinci until his death, to slowly continue its pictorial execution, still unfinished in 1519; very probably acquired by François I in 1518 then removed from the royal collections in unknown conditions; belonged to Roger du Plessis, Duke of Liancourt, in the 1520s; given by the Duke of Liancourt to King Charles I of England, and kept in London from the years 1630 to 1649; after the execution of Charles I, sale of the Commonwealth in 1651; acquired at this sale by Cruso and Terence in 1651; sold to the banker Everhard Jabach and kept in his collection in Paris until 1662; acquired by Louis XIV in 1662 and remained in the French royal collection until 1792; exhibited at the Louvre Museum in 1801.

An origin still poorly known

The circumstances of the creation of Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci are unknown. The artist hardly mentions it in his writings, and we do not know if he painted it for a specific patron (no hypothesis of commission could be supported by documents, including that of Edoardo Villata in 1997 who proposed, without decisive argument, the name of Giovanni Benci) or if it is a personal project, as is assumed for Saint Anne. The first absolutely certain mention of the work is the inventory of the collection of King Charles I of England, completed in 1639 by Abraham van der Doort. The latter recalls the entry conditions for the painting, offered by the Duke of Liancourt in exchange for a Portrait of Erasmus by Holbein and a Madonna and Child by Titian. These gifts were probably made in 1630, when Liancourt was sent by Louis XIII to congratulate the English sovereign on the birth of the future Charles II. Witness to this story, the iron mark (crowned CR) of the King of England affixed to the reverse of the Louvre painting (This mark is only visible on an x-ray, because it was later covered with a layer of protective coating). On the death of Charles I, the work was acquired by Cruso and Terence, then sold to the banker Everhard Jabach, who gave it in 16611662 to Louis XIV. The painting remained in the royal collection until its entry into the Louvre during the Revolution. Roger du Plessis, Duke of La Rocheguyon and Liancourt, was one of the great collectors of the first half of the 17th century. However, it is unknown how he acquired Leonardo‘s painting. For a long time, historians thought that he had offered, in the name of King Louis XIII, a work from the royal collection. But this idea was abandoned because Van Der Doort’s notes do not indicate it, and the paintings given in exchange by Charles I passed to Liancourt and not to Louis XIII. However, it is possible that Saint John the Baptist was previously part of the heritage of the crown of France. Our knowledge of the royal collections in the 16th century remains very incomplete. Furthermore, 17th century sources mention in the king’s home, not this small painting but the large Saint John the Baptist in a landscape, transformed into Bacchus at the end of the 17th century and then attributed to the master. The presence of this work at the Château de Fontainebleau from at least 1625 explains why historians do not agree on the identification of the “young Saint John the Baptist” shown in October 1517 by Leonardo to the Cardinal of Aragon at the Château de Cloux. It seems more plausible that it is little Saint John, which is really autograph. The large version is very clearly a studio painting, attributable to Francesco Melzi, and it is difficult to imagine the old master appropriating the much more modest work of his student in front of his illustrious host. In addition, the presence in France of little Saint John the Baptist is attested by his undeniable influence on the Portrait of Francis I as Saint John the Baptist painted by Jean Clouet in 1518 (Paris, Louvre museum, RF 2005.12). Taken by the master to France in 1516, the masterpiece could have been acquired by Francis I, with the Mona Lisa and Saint Anne, then left the royal collections in unknown circumstances, reaching the hands of the Duke of Liancourt at the beginning of the 17th century.

A debated dating

Due to a lack of documents, the dating of Saint John the Baptist has varied greatly in historiography, from the end of the 1490s to the artist’s French period. The hypothesis that the painting was conceived during Leonardo‘s second Florentine period was proposed as early as the mid-19th century, for stylistic reasons, due to its close links with the Mona Lisa and Saint Anne. The ancient Florentine sources, the Libro di Antonio Billi and the Anonimo Magliabechiano, have also preserved the memory of the work. This Florentine dating has been defended in recent years by Edoardo Villata, who underlined the affinity of the figure of Leonardo with Saint John from the Altarpiece of the Incarnation by Piero di Cosimo (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1890 n. 506), the dating of which encourages him to place Saint John the Baptist around 15051506. But his argument remains fragile because the figure of Piero di Cosimo has a different gesture from that of Leonardo and his physical type could be just as inspired by another invention of the master designed as early as 15031504, the Angel of the Annunciation of which we we will talk further. In 1939, Kenneth Clark proposed a late execution of the work, during the Roman period, around 15131514. In its wake, specialists have highlighted the presence of spotted animal skin evoking the coat of the god Bacchus, a detail which, according to them, could be linked to the ancient climate of the Eternal City. Recently, Frank Zöllner supported this idea by maintaining that the iconography of the Baptist was particularly in favor in the Rome of Pope Medici Leo X. The hypothesis of a pontifical order has even been put forward, but without documentary argument. The restricted palette of the painting, the emphasis placed on shadow and light have also been interpreted as a sort of pictorial testament that some have therefore placed in the French period, around 15161518. In this debate, we do not have an autograph preparatory drawing capable of providing a clue. However, there is in the Codex Atlanticus, on folio 489 recto, under writings by Leonardo in pen, the drawing in black stone of a right hand, in the same position as that of the Baptist. The outlines are strong, very academic, hence its justified attribution to a student. By comparison with other sheets by the master, the geometric designs which cover the hand have been dated to 1509, a year which could therefore be a terminus ante quem for the design of Saint John the Baptist. The walnut support has sometimes been used to support the thesis of an execution in Milan, most often from 1508, according to the questionable idea according to which Leonardo used exclusively poplar in Florence and walnut in Milan.

The ancestor Gabriel

According to several historians, the Saint John the Baptist could be the natural development of a previous composition by the master. On a Windsor sheet (RCIN 12328) mixing mathematical calculations, geometric drawings, gear machines, men and horses, the figure of an angel can be seen. He extends his right arm to point to the sky while the other is folded over his chest. At the top is a phylactery. The figure is drawn quickly in black chalk, with a hatching characteristic of a right-handed person. This explains why specialists recognize it as the work of a student, however corrected by the master with a pen for the contours of the bust and the right arm in order to improve the effect of the foreshortening. The furious riders and horses drawn with the same ink are clearly preparatory to the Battle of Anghiari and allow us to place the angel around 15031504. It was most certainly Leonardo himself who invented this composition, inspired by one of the figures in the Adoration of the Magi conceived between 1480 and 1482. An autograph study (Venice, Galleria dell’Accademia, inv. n. 138 ) for the left arm of the angel provides confirmation of this. Drawn in red chalk with white highlights, it presents a nervous line and repentances which allow it to be attributed to the master, despite the doubts expressed by some. Vasari cites a painting on this theme in the collection of Grand Duke Cosimo I, in the 1568 edition of his biography of the artist: “an Angel who raises in the air an arm whose part from the shoulder to the elbow, coming forward, appears foreshortened, while with the other he brings the hand to the heart. And it is an admirable thing that this genius, having the desire to give the greatest relief to his works, was, with the dark shadow, to go and find some of the darkest backgrounds, so much so that he was looking for blacks which shade and were more obscure than the other blacks, so that by their means the light was more lucid, and that, in the end, it would have resulted in this manner so dark that, with no light remaining, his works had the appearance of things made to counterfeit night rather than the finesse of daylight; but all this was intended to give greater relief, to achieve the end and perfection of art.” This painting has disappeared from Medicean collections and we will therefore never know whether it was an original or a good workshop copy. Only one version has reached us, that of the Hermitage Museum, unfortunately in poor condition because it was transposed from wood to canvas. The attitude of the angel recalls that of Gabriel in the scene of the Annunciation. On the other hand, the fingers of his right hand are not in the position of blessing, they are indicating the sky or, in Windsor‘s drawing, showing the phylactery on which must undoubtedly have been inscribed in Latin the first words that the archangel addresses to the Virgin: “Hail Mary full of grace”. As in the Salvator Mundi, the figure is placed against a dark background, but it displays a much more energetic attitude, towards the viewer. Such interaction recalls certain private devotional paintings by Antonello of Messina, such as his Virgin of the Annunciation. The work invites a meditation on the reaction of the Virgin at the moment of the angelic appearance, or more broadly on the designs of God, ready to intervene in the world, through the intermediary of an angel. It is also the reassuring image of an angel who smiles delicately at us, his hand on his heart, a symbol of faith, and who points to heaven, the last refuge for the salvation of the soul.

The Baptist’s Preaching with Rustici

This angelic figure inspired the young Baccio Bandinelli for one of his first drawings (Christie’s London sale, July 1, 1969, no. 119). Baccio was then training in the workshop of the sculptor Giovanfrancesco Rustici, at the very time when Leonardo was helping the latter in the design of the Preaching of the Baptist which was to be placed above one of the doors of the baptistery in Florence. The order for this monumental bronze group was placed in December 1506 and the work was installed in June or July 1511. Vasari recalls that Leonardo assisted Rustici, undoubtedly towards the beginning of the design, when he was in Florence, between September 1507 and the spring of 1508. The work represents the passage from the Gospel according to Saint John where, after being questioned about his identity, the Baptist, surrounded by a Pharisee and a Levite, declares: “I am the voice of one crying in the desert.” It is undoubtedly Rustici’s great masterpiece, in which the influence of Leonardo is manifest, notably in the anatomical power of the figures, their vigorous expression, the virtuosity of the draperies and the gesture of the saint which recalls that of the Angel of the Annunciation. However, this attitude is hardly new when it comes to the Baptist. The last prophet, who came to announce the imminent arrival of Christ, is traditionally represented with his arm raised, to indicate Jesus or heaven.

A first composition for the Baptist

It was perhaps during his reflection with Rustici on the iconography of the Baptist that Leonardo decided to make a devotional painting dedicated to the patron saint of Florence. It is possible that he initially considered resuming the pose of the Angel of the Annunciation which had been used in the sculpted group of the baptistery. This first idea perhaps appears in Bandinelli’s drawing, where the figure is deprived of wings. There are also three painted versions with a Saint John the Baptist in the pose of the Angel, two of which, preserved in the museums of Basel and Oxford, could be workshop copies. The saint now wears a spotted animal skin, and holds a cross in the Basel copy. The X-ray fluorescence analysis of the Saint John the Baptist of the Louvre, an examination which makes it possible to obtain a map of the chemical elements, revealed among the repentances of the pictorial execution that the bust was formerly more facing, a position very close to that of the copies of the Baptist in the pose of the Angel of the Annunciation, which would support the idea that the painting derives from this idea.

A second, more pictorial solution

The impressive plastic force that Leonardo had imagined for the Angel gloriously announcing the Incarnation, with his arm projecting towards the viewer, matched perfectly with the eloquence required by Rustici’s sculpted group representing the saint’s preaching and intended to mark public space. But its translation into an image of private devotion, reduced to the sole figure of the Baptist, must have seemed to him to be still perfectible. The master decides to fold the right arm over the body, which gives the face a central place, because the right hand is now placed at its level and not above it. The movement of the figure is less lively but more complex. The bust and arm now clearly point towards our right, while the head turns to the left to look at us, thus forming a graceful spiral. The sudden appearance of the Angel of the Annunciation gives way to the gentle and mysterious appearance of the Baptist, manifested above all by the subtle chiaroscuro which triumphs in this work with its extraordinary economy of means. It is perhaps the direct confrontation with sculpture, during the work with Rustici, which encouraged Leonardo to find a more pictorial path in his painting, entrusting less to the gesture than to the effects of shadow and light, magnified by its very subtle effects of sfumato, the care to reveal all the force of expression of the figure. The light delicately makes the Baptist’s body emerge as if from deep night and gives his movement the appearance of a sinuous flame. During the recent restoration carried out in 20152016, the question arose of the true tone of the skin tone and the type of lighting. The work was until now covered by thick layers of oxidized varnish which considerably yellowed the figure of the saint. During the lightening of these varnishes, the color of the flesh remained very warm. The choice to leave a still significant layer of old varnish on the original material explains why the light is still very yellow. The sample taken from the complexion still revealed a significantly colder tone, and, moreover, the old copies also show a light flesh.

Perfecting the form

As usual, Leonardo had to slowly paint his Saint John the Baptist. Laboratory examinations carried out in recent years, infrared reflectography and even more X-ray fluorescence analysis, have highlighted the modifications made by the artist during the pictorial execution. Leonardo moved the contours of the saint’s body at least three times. The first position was more frontal, very close to that of the versions of Saint John the Baptist in the pose of the Angel of the Annunciation. Leonardo then directed the bust further to the right, then finally found a middle position, slightly less turned. He also shifted his right arm, more or less away from the head. On the right hand, the thumb joined the middle finger, as in the drawn copy of the Codex Atlanticus, before moving away from it. The painter also hesitated about the visibility to give to the left arm folded towards the bust. Finally, he modified the hairstyle, adding a lock of hair to the front of the face. These abandoned ideas, visible through scientific imagery, are found in old copies, many of which were probably painted in the studio. Today there are around twenty of them, which can be classified into three large families, each of them illustrating a stage of the master’s thinking. The more frontal position of the bust is found, for example, in a group of copies to which a painting from the Capodimonte museum in Naples belongs (inv. Q1930,797). At the time when this arrangement was favored, a lock of hair was provided on the shoulder, as in the Angel of the Annunciation. The Ambrosian copy retains the idea of the wick, but the body is now more than three-quarters. His raised arm is lower, further away from the face. The right hand, with the thumb joining the middle finger, is identical to that of the Codex Atlanticus drawing. The position of the arm, which is almost the final position, is found in the copy from the old Chéramy collection (Paris Drouot sale, Beaussant-Lefèvre study, April 5, 2013, no. 29) of which the author did not yet know the layout definitive of the fingers of the right hand nor that of the additional lock of hair. All these copies thus help us to retrace the chronology of the slight changes made during the slow pictorial execution.

Incompleteness

We cannot ignore the doubts that have been expressed since the 19th century about the autography of the work. Parts of the painting, mainly the right hand and arm, have been harshly criticized for their clumsy drawing. These apparent weaknesses have also been interpreted as the unfortunate result of old restorations, since the 17th century. Abraham van der Doort noted that “the arm and hand were damaged by some cleaning carried out before the painting reached your majesty”. Historians have had great difficulty understanding the reality of these areas, because the painting remained for a very long time under thick layers of oxidized varnish which impaired its reading. It is only thanks to the recent restoration of 20152016 that we have been able to better understand the pictorial material and its state of conservation. Lightening the old varnishes revealed that the parts whose design was more schematic and the light transitions less accomplished were unfinished areas. Thus the right elbow and forearm but also the left arm. Other areas, however, may have suffered from previous cleanings. It is therefore very possible that some glazing is missing at the level of the upper right arm, the musculature of which is better marked in the old copies made from the painting in the Louvre (for example that of the Château de Blois museum, inv. 2002.1). Like the Saint Anne and the Mona Lisa, the Saint John the Baptist was a partly experimental work. Leonardo was looking for the ideal twist of a body, the perfect rendering of the play of light and shadow to magnify the movement, build the volume and animate the smile, with an extraordinary economy of means, almost without color.

The witness of the Light

The perfection of the chiaroscuro effects explains why some historians have considered the work as a sort of theoretical manifesto. Carlo Pedretti, followed by Daniel Arasse, thus argued that it should illustrate Leonardo‘s thoughts on painting, based on shadow and light, and demonstrate the superiority of this discipline over sculpture, within the framework of the paragone, the debate on the respective merits of the different arts. However, this illustrated defense of painting must above all have a spiritual dimension which has been much debated by historians. It has rightly been pointed out that the physical type chosen by Leonardo, the adolescent with ideal beauty, could be inspired by Florentine precedents of the Quattrocento, such as the sculptures of Desiderio da Settignano or Benedetto da Maiano. This choice could be explained by the ambition of the work, meditative and not narrative. We are not dealing here with the emaciated ascetic living in the desert nor with the fiery preacher. Against a dark abstract background, the prophet appears in his ideal beauty, like a messenger who announces the arrival of the Messiah and confirms Salvation to us with his radiant smile. This image has sometimes been linked to the Neoplatonic movement, the ephebe being interpreted as a superior form of beauty. We have also commented, in an equally questionable manner, on the androgynous character of the saint, with a potentially hermetic and alchemical meaning. This androgynous aspect, noticed at the end of the 19th century, is in fact part of the artist’s personal research on beauty, and we also find it in other characters, such as the Angel of the Annunciation. Another singular element of the image is the animal skin worn by the saint, not that of a camel, as reported in the Scriptures, but a spotted fur, belonging to wild animals such as panther, leopard or lynx. This detail seems completely unique at the time Leonardo depicts it. It has been compared to the fur worn by Bacchus, a pagan divinity sometimes considered a prefiguration of Christ, particularly because of his attributes of the vine and wine. The feminine character of Leonardo‘s Baptist was formerly interpreted as a sign of voluptuousness. Fascinated or shocked, this vision of the painting took shape during the 19th century. Théophile Gautier detected a sardonic expression on her face, a disturbing malice, a sphinx-like inscrutability, and suspected her orthodoxy, because of her smile which he described as diabolical. This revelation, supported a little later by Sar Péladan, was adopted by several historians, notably Pietro Marani, who defines Leonardo‘s Baptist as an angel of evil who would seek to awaken obscene thoughts in the viewer. This position partly explains the temptation, devoid of course of any basis, of seeing in the work a hidden portrait, generally that of someone close to the master. For some it would be Salaì, because of the long curly hair described by Vasari, but, more recently, Edoardo Villata preferred the mysterious Lorenzo, who accompanied Leonardo to Rome in 1513. The work has also given rise to diametrically opposed readings, in which the authors on the contrary admire the spiritual intensity of the painting, and it is on this side that we side. The analysis carried out so far on Leonardo‘s religious paintings demonstrates great depth of reflection and a desire to best illustrate the sacred mystery. Paul Barolsky rightly linked the Louvre painting to the first verses of the Gospel according to Saint John: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not stopped it. There was a man sent by God; his name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness to the Light, that all through him might believe. This man was not the Light, but he was there to bear witness to the Light.»
Leonardo‘s Saint John the Baptist is undoubtedly the most accomplished illustration of this text where the last prophet is defined as the witness of light. The artist depicts a mysterious and ephemeral epiphany, the sweet appearance of a sparkle doomed to disappear before the true light of Christ. By turning, Saint John seems to want to take us with him into this night, and his smile promises us the coming dawn, eternal salvation. (Text by Vincent Delieuvin, July 2021) (Louvre)

See also:

• Charles I (England) | François I, King of France (1494-1547)