(Florence 1444/5–1510)
Christ with Saint John the Baptist
tempera on panel, 37.3 x 50.5 cm, unframed

Provenance:
European private collection

The present painting is of extremely refined execution and directly picks up on features typical of the style of Botticelli in his most intensely linear period after 1485. The elegant features of the young Christ are very similar to those of the angels in the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints altarpiece for San Marco in Florence and today in the Uffizi, commissioned from Botticelli by the Arte della Seta di Por Santa Maria in 1488 (H. Horne, Botticelli, the Painter of Florence, London 1908, p. 168 et seq.), while the type of the Baptist is absolutely typical of the great Florentine artist’s oeuvre. Another feature wholly representative of Botticelli’s style is the graphic insistence, which defines the forms through a repeated succession of curved contours– with exceptional results in the drawing of the crossed hands of the young Baptist.

There are close similarities between this work and some panels produced by Botticelli’s workshop in the years around 1490, painted by assistants and pupils under his direction and closely following the master’s designs. One such is the large tondo in the Galleria Borghese in Rome often considered an autograph work (R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, vol. II, London 1978, pp. 130-31), or the others formerly in the van Buuren collection in Haarlem (Van Ham, Cologne, 14 November 2014, Lot 502) and in the collection of Carl W. Hamilton, New York (sold by Christie’s, New York, 18 May 1980, Lot 34; see Y. Yashiro, Sandro Botticelli, London 1925, vol. I, p. 246). A particular affinity in the execution of the brushwork and type, as well as in the details, can be noted also with the tondo showing the Madonna and Child with the young Baptist formerly in the Bauer collection in Frankfurt (R. Lightbown, op. cit. 1978, pp. 136-37), attributed by Berenson directly to Botticelli and by others to the artist with the assistance of his workshop.

The present subject is rare and derives from Florentine sources; it shows the adolescent Christ in half-bust in the act of blessing the young Baptist, in conformity with a compositional scheme recalling the Arconati Visconti tondo by Desiderio da Settignano (Paris, Louvre RF 1626; see N. Penny, in: Desiderio da Settignano, exh. cat., Paris 2007, pp.180-182). It derives from the medieval legends concerning the Life of the Baptist (regarding the iconography, see M. Aromberg Lavin, Giovanni Battista: A study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism, in: The Art Bulletin, XXXVII, (1955), pp. 85-107; id. in: The Art Bulletin, XLIII, (1961), pp. 319-26) and re-elaborates the more common theme of the ‘Encounter between the young Christ and Baptist in the desert on the return from the Flight into Egypt‘, of which some examples include those of Domenico Ghirlandaio (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Inv. 93) and the Maestro di Marradi (formerly Hausamman collection, Zurich). The image is one that can also be found in the background of some pictures showing The Penitent Saint Jerome by Jacopo del Sellaio (formerly in the Rasini collection, Milan) and by a workshop of Perugino (Washington, National Gallery, 1939.1.280). It is very curious that the composition, of which no other examples are known in Renaissance painting, was revived in almost identical form by Guido Reni, who seems to have drawn inspiration possibly from the present picture for his own version now in the National Gallery, London, datable to around 1640 (NG 191; M. Levey, National Gallery Catalogues. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Italian Schools, London 1971, pp. 185-86; S. Pepper, Guido Reni, Novara 1988, p. 343).

This size of the present painting would suggest that it was executed for a private commission.

Provenance:
European private collection The present painting is of an extremely refined execution and directly picks up on features typical of the style of Botticelli in his most intensely linear period after 1485. The elegant features of the young Christ are very similar to those of the angels in the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints altarpiece for San Marco in Florence and today in the Uffizi, commissioned from Botticelli by the Arte della Seta or Por Santa Maria in 1488 (H. Horne, Botticelli, the Painter of Florence, London 1908, p. 168 et seq.), while the type of the Baptist is absolutely typical of the great Florentine artist’s oeuvre. Another feature wholly representative of Botticelli’s style is the graphic insistence, which defines the forms through a repeated succession of curved contours– with exceptional results in the drawing of the crossed hands of the young Baptist.

There are close similarities between this work and some panels produced by Botticelli’s workshop in the years around 1490, painted by assistants and pupils under his direction and closely following the master’s designs. One such is the large tondo in the Galleria Borghese in Romeoften considered an autograph work (R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, vol. II, London 1978, pp. 130-31), or the others formerly in the van Buuren collection in Haarlem (Van Ham, Cologne, 14 November 2014, Lot 502) and in the collection of Carl W. Hamilton, New York (sold by Christie’s, New York, 18 May 1980, Lot 34; see Y. Yashiro, Sandro Botticelli, London 1925, vol. I, p. 246). A particular affinity in the execution of the brushwork and type, as well as in the details, can be noted also with the tondo showing the Madonna and Child with the young Baptist formerly in the Bauer collection in Frankfurt (R. Lightbown, op. cit. 1978, pp. 136-37), attributed by Berenson directly to Botticelli and by others to the artist with the assistance of his workshop.

The present subject is rare and derives from Florentine sources; it shows the adolescent Christ in half-bust in the act of blessing the young Baptist, in conformity with a compositional scheme recalling the Arconati Visconti tondo by Desiderio da Settignano (Paris, Louvre RF 1626; see N. Penny, in: Desiderio da Settignano, exh. cat., Paris 2007, pp.180-182). It derives from the medieval legends concerning the Life of the Baptist (regarding the iconography, see M. Aromberg Lavin, Giovanni Battista: A study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism, in: The Art Bulletin, XXXVII, (1955), pp. 85-107; id. in: The Art Bulletin, XLIII, (1961), pp. 319-26) and re-elaborates the more common theme of the ‘Encounter between the young Christ and Baptist in the desert on the return from the Flight into Egypt‘, of which some examples include those of Domenico Ghirlandaio (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Inv. 93) and the Maestro di Marradi (formerly Hausamman collection, Zurich). The image is one that is also find in the background of some pictures showing The Penitent Saint Jerome by Jacopo del Sellaio (formerly in the Rasini collection, Milan) and by a workshop of Perugino (Washington, National Gallery, 1939.1.280). It is very curious that the composition, of which no other examples are known in Renaissance painting, was revived in almost identical form by Guido Reni, who seems to have drawn inspiration possibly from the present picture for his own version now in the National Gallery, London, datable to around 1640 (NG 191; M. Levey, National Gallery Catalogues. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Italian Schools, London 1971, pp. 185-86; S. Pepper, Guido Reni, Novara 1988, p. 343).

This size of the present painting would suggest that it was executed for a private commission.