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Lot Essay
This intriguing picture by Artemisia Gentileschi has only recently come to light and, with its unusual iconography and bravura handling of drapery, expands the artist’s existing visual repertoire. The painting can be dated on stylistic grounds to the 1630s, after Artemisia’s arrival in the Spanish-controlled city of Naples, where she would spend the last twenty-five years of her life (except for a brief sojourn in England in 1638/9-40). Artemisia almost certainly moved to Naples at the instigation of Fernando Afán de Ribera, 3rd Duke of Alcalá (1583–1637), who served as Spanish Viceroy from July 1629 to May 1631. Alcala had met Artemisia in Rome in the mid-1620s, when he was Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, and owned a number of works by the artist (on Alcalá and Artemisia see D. García Cueto and R. Japón, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi e Giovanna Garzoni, due pittrici al servizio del III duca di Alcalá’, in G. Porzio ed., Artemisia Gentileschi a Napoli, exhibition catalogue, Naples, 2022, pp. 51-59). The city of Naples provided Artemisia with commercial opportunities: not only did she work on large-scale public commissions, but she also produced pictures for the open market and private patrons, both within Naples and beyond.
This painting can be closely compared to other firmly attributed works by Artemisia from the mid-1630s. In particular, the Baptist’s facial type resembles that of Minerva in Artemisia’s signed picture in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, Pennsylvania, 1999, pp. 261-63, cat. 36; fig. 1). They look so alike that one might suppose that they are based on the same model. Both paintings present a strongly-lit figure, shown in three-quarter-length and wearing a crown of laurel leaves, positioned before a plain background that is softly illuminated to give the protagonists greater three-dimensionality. The turn of the Baptist’s head serves to animate the figure, as it does for Minerva. The huge expanse of golden yellow drapery that dominates the composition here is handled in a very similar manner to the folds of Corisca’s voluminous skirt in Corisca and the Satyr (c. 1635-37, private collection; fig. 2). In both works Artemisia builds up the drapery from dark to light, marking out highlights with loose unblended brushstrokes and mixing in black for the shadows of the folds. The treatment of the drapery points to Artemisia’s awareness of Venetian painting, which she would have had the opportunity of observing at close quarters during her stay in Venice at the end of the 1620s, supporting a dating here in the following decade. The crumpled, angular folds bunched under Saint John’s right elbow seem to have a life of their own, as does the skirt of Corisca which flaps behind her to simulate movement, and the latter’s flowing gown and cape are often cited as Artemisia’s most beautifully painted passages of drapery (see J.W. Mann, in Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, ed. K. Christiansen and J.W. Mann, exh. cat., Rome, New York and St Louis, 2001-2, p. 397, cat. 74; and J. Locker, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Language of Painting, New Haven and London, 2015, p. 89).
The iconography of this picture is highly unusual, suggesting its subject may have changed midway through painting. The male figure is clearly to be identified as Saint John the Baptist, as his attributes of a lamb and reed cross with cartellino bearing the words ‘ECCE AGNUS DEI’ suggests. It is difficult, however, to explain why the Baptist is wearing a crown of laurel on his head, more usually found on classical figures or allegorical personifications. Indeed, other figures in Artemisia’s repertoire who are crowned with laurel fall into this category; see, for example, the signed Clio, Muse of History (1632, Fondazione Pisa, exhibited at Palazzo Blu), her signed Self Portrait showing the artist at her easel rather like an ‘Allegory of Painting’ (before 1637, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome) and the aforementioned signed Minerva (mid-1630s, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence). The classical overtones are unmistakable here in this effeminate semi-nude figure, crowned with laurel and draped in a splendid golden cloak. He appears more like the sun god Apollo than he does a saint. Indeed, on close inspection the reed cross he holds was clearly painted over (and hence after) the figure: the pale flesh of the youth’s (proper) right bicep is visible through the cross, where the paint layers have thinned slightly. The lamb is very swiftly painted and looks rather like an afterthought – its body is barely sketched in and seems unfinished in places. As it is known to have been the case in other paintings by Artemisia, the picture likely underwent an iconographical transformation and seems to have been ‘turned into’ a Saint John the Baptist (on similar iconographical alterations see the self-portraits in a private collection and in the National Gallery, London; L. Treves, Artemisia, exh. cat., London, 2020, p. 134, cat. 9, and p. 140, cat. 11). The circumstances surrounding the modification here are unknown but the change may have been commercially motivated, perhaps because there was a ready buyer for a picture of the Baptist.
Works by Artemisia representing both Apollo and Saint John the Baptist are known through sources, contemporary poems and through the artist’s letters, though the paintings have yet to be identified. A poem written by Girolamo Fontanella, published in Naples in 1640 and dedicated to a ‘portrait of Apollo’ by Artemisia (‘Alla Signora Artemisia Gentileschi, per lo Ritratto d’Apollo’), eulogises a painting of Apollo that is so lifelike as to appear real (‘giudicar non saprei s’è finto o vero!’; see J. Locker, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Language of Painting, New Haven and London, 2015, pp. 105-6; and D.A. D’Alessandro, in A.E. Denunzio and G. Porzio eds, Artemisia Gentileschi a Napoli. Studi e documenti, Naples, 2023, p. 53). In the poem, Apollo is described as blond and holding a lyre, thus excluding an identification with this work, but it is not impossible that the picture to which Fontanella refers bore some similarity to the figure here since Artemisia frequently re-used elements of her designs (on Artemisia’s reuse of motifs see, most recently, N. Munz and A. Izat, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi’s ‘Susanna and the elders’ painted for Henrietta Maria’, Burlington Magazine, 165, September 2023, esp. pp. 1063-65).
Saint John the Baptist is not a subject one would naturally associate with Artemisia, but she did treat the theme on at least two different occasions: both pictures were destined for important patrons and remain untraced (R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, Pennsylvania, 1999, p. 380, cats. L-75 and L-76). The first was painted for the Duke of Alcalá during his tenure as Viceroy of Naples and appears in an inventory of the Casa de Pilatos in Seville in 1637 (D. García Cueto and R. Japón, op. cit., p. 52). A second inventory of 1751 notes the picture’s size (‘dos varas de alto’), which is considerably larger than the dimensions of this picture, thereby excluding its identification with Alcalá’s Saint John the Baptist. The second painting, a Saint John the Baptist in a Desert, is mentioned in a letter from Artemisia to Cassiano dal Pozzo on 24 November 1637 (see M. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989, pp. 387-88, letters 13 and 14; and F. Solinas, in Artemisia, ed. L. Treves, exh. cat., London, 2020, pp. 54, 63, footnote 55). It was one of two large-scale pictures sent by the artist from Naples, entrusted to her brother to deliver as gifts for Cardinals Francesco and Antonio Barberini in Rome. One of these, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, can be identified with a picture recently acquired by the Fondazione Pisa (exhibited at Palazzo Blu) while Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, which measured over two metres in height, remains lost. A further painting of Saint John the Baptist (measuring 3 by 4 palmi) is listed in the 1785 inventory of Ascanio Filomarino’s collection in Naples, though its identification with the present work can be excluded on the basis of nineteenth-century accounts describing the Baptist as sleeping (‘in atto di dormire’ o ‘addormentato’; see Ward Bissell, op. cit., pp. 380-81, cat. L-77).
The attribution to Artemisia Gentileschi has been endorsed by Giuseppe Porzio, Maria Cristina Terzaghi and Patrizia Cavazzini after first-hand inspecton, and by Riccardo Lattuada from photographs. The painting has been requested for the exhibition Artemisia Gentileschi et l’Europe (provisional title), co-curated by Terzaghi and Cavazzini, due to take place at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, in Spring 2025.
This painting can be closely compared to other firmly attributed works by Artemisia from the mid-1630s. In particular, the Baptist’s facial type resembles that of Minerva in Artemisia’s signed picture in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, Pennsylvania, 1999, pp. 261-63, cat. 36; fig. 1). They look so alike that one might suppose that they are based on the same model. Both paintings present a strongly-lit figure, shown in three-quarter-length and wearing a crown of laurel leaves, positioned before a plain background that is softly illuminated to give the protagonists greater three-dimensionality. The turn of the Baptist’s head serves to animate the figure, as it does for Minerva. The huge expanse of golden yellow drapery that dominates the composition here is handled in a very similar manner to the folds of Corisca’s voluminous skirt in Corisca and the Satyr (c. 1635-37, private collection; fig. 2). In both works Artemisia builds up the drapery from dark to light, marking out highlights with loose unblended brushstrokes and mixing in black for the shadows of the folds. The treatment of the drapery points to Artemisia’s awareness of Venetian painting, which she would have had the opportunity of observing at close quarters during her stay in Venice at the end of the 1620s, supporting a dating here in the following decade. The crumpled, angular folds bunched under Saint John’s right elbow seem to have a life of their own, as does the skirt of Corisca which flaps behind her to simulate movement, and the latter’s flowing gown and cape are often cited as Artemisia’s most beautifully painted passages of drapery (see J.W. Mann, in Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, ed. K. Christiansen and J.W. Mann, exh. cat., Rome, New York and St Louis, 2001-2, p. 397, cat. 74; and J. Locker, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Language of Painting, New Haven and London, 2015, p. 89).
The iconography of this picture is highly unusual, suggesting its subject may have changed midway through painting. The male figure is clearly to be identified as Saint John the Baptist, as his attributes of a lamb and reed cross with cartellino bearing the words ‘ECCE AGNUS DEI’ suggests. It is difficult, however, to explain why the Baptist is wearing a crown of laurel on his head, more usually found on classical figures or allegorical personifications. Indeed, other figures in Artemisia’s repertoire who are crowned with laurel fall into this category; see, for example, the signed Clio, Muse of History (1632, Fondazione Pisa, exhibited at Palazzo Blu), her signed Self Portrait showing the artist at her easel rather like an ‘Allegory of Painting’ (before 1637, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome) and the aforementioned signed Minerva (mid-1630s, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence). The classical overtones are unmistakable here in this effeminate semi-nude figure, crowned with laurel and draped in a splendid golden cloak. He appears more like the sun god Apollo than he does a saint. Indeed, on close inspection the reed cross he holds was clearly painted over (and hence after) the figure: the pale flesh of the youth’s (proper) right bicep is visible through the cross, where the paint layers have thinned slightly. The lamb is very swiftly painted and looks rather like an afterthought – its body is barely sketched in and seems unfinished in places. As it is known to have been the case in other paintings by Artemisia, the picture likely underwent an iconographical transformation and seems to have been ‘turned into’ a Saint John the Baptist (on similar iconographical alterations see the self-portraits in a private collection and in the National Gallery, London; L. Treves, Artemisia, exh. cat., London, 2020, p. 134, cat. 9, and p. 140, cat. 11). The circumstances surrounding the modification here are unknown but the change may have been commercially motivated, perhaps because there was a ready buyer for a picture of the Baptist.
Works by Artemisia representing both Apollo and Saint John the Baptist are known through sources, contemporary poems and through the artist’s letters, though the paintings have yet to be identified. A poem written by Girolamo Fontanella, published in Naples in 1640 and dedicated to a ‘portrait of Apollo’ by Artemisia (‘Alla Signora Artemisia Gentileschi, per lo Ritratto d’Apollo’), eulogises a painting of Apollo that is so lifelike as to appear real (‘giudicar non saprei s’è finto o vero!’; see J. Locker, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Language of Painting, New Haven and London, 2015, pp. 105-6; and D.A. D’Alessandro, in A.E. Denunzio and G. Porzio eds, Artemisia Gentileschi a Napoli. Studi e documenti, Naples, 2023, p. 53). In the poem, Apollo is described as blond and holding a lyre, thus excluding an identification with this work, but it is not impossible that the picture to which Fontanella refers bore some similarity to the figure here since Artemisia frequently re-used elements of her designs (on Artemisia’s reuse of motifs see, most recently, N. Munz and A. Izat, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi’s ‘Susanna and the elders’ painted for Henrietta Maria’, Burlington Magazine, 165, September 2023, esp. pp. 1063-65).
Saint John the Baptist is not a subject one would naturally associate with Artemisia, but she did treat the theme on at least two different occasions: both pictures were destined for important patrons and remain untraced (R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, Pennsylvania, 1999, p. 380, cats. L-75 and L-76). The first was painted for the Duke of Alcalá during his tenure as Viceroy of Naples and appears in an inventory of the Casa de Pilatos in Seville in 1637 (D. García Cueto and R. Japón, op. cit., p. 52). A second inventory of 1751 notes the picture’s size (‘dos varas de alto’), which is considerably larger than the dimensions of this picture, thereby excluding its identification with Alcalá’s Saint John the Baptist. The second painting, a Saint John the Baptist in a Desert, is mentioned in a letter from Artemisia to Cassiano dal Pozzo on 24 November 1637 (see M. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989, pp. 387-88, letters 13 and 14; and F. Solinas, in Artemisia, ed. L. Treves, exh. cat., London, 2020, pp. 54, 63, footnote 55). It was one of two large-scale pictures sent by the artist from Naples, entrusted to her brother to deliver as gifts for Cardinals Francesco and Antonio Barberini in Rome. One of these, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, can be identified with a picture recently acquired by the Fondazione Pisa (exhibited at Palazzo Blu) while Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, which measured over two metres in height, remains lost. A further painting of Saint John the Baptist (measuring 3 by 4 palmi) is listed in the 1785 inventory of Ascanio Filomarino’s collection in Naples, though its identification with the present work can be excluded on the basis of nineteenth-century accounts describing the Baptist as sleeping (‘in atto di dormire’ o ‘addormentato’; see Ward Bissell, op. cit., pp. 380-81, cat. L-77).
The attribution to Artemisia Gentileschi has been endorsed by Giuseppe Porzio, Maria Cristina Terzaghi and Patrizia Cavazzini after first-hand inspecton, and by Riccardo Lattuada from photographs. The painting has been requested for the exhibition Artemisia Gentileschi et l’Europe (provisional title), co-curated by Terzaghi and Cavazzini, due to take place at the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, in Spring 2025.