(Játiva, Valencia 1591–1652 Naples)
Saint John the Baptist,
oil on canvas, 92 x 72 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

We are grateful to Nicola Spinosa for confirming the attribution to Jusepe de Ribera on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph. He dates the present painting to the 1630s.

The present composition can be compared to another autograph version by Ribera sold at Dorotheum, Vienna 17 October 2012, lot 623 (signed and dated 1632, 109 x 82.3 cm, see N. Spinosa, Ribera, L’opera completa, Naples 2006, p. 311, cat. no. A 138).

The physical characteristics of Saint John, with his pale skin and reddish-blond curls relate to a series of figures from Ribera’s paintings, concentrated during the 1630s, when the painter showed a strong predilection for this physical type. The type can also be seen in the angel in Saint Francis of Assisi in the Porziuncola in the chapel of Palacio Real, El Pardo. The present Saint John can also be compared to the Venus in Venus and Adonis in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Corsini, Rome, dated 1637 and the protagonist of the Assumption of Mary Magdalene in the Museum of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, dated 1636. It is a physical type that recurs in another celebrated work – the Virgin of the Earthly Trinity in the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, which is dated around 1635.

The painting previously sold at Dorotheum in 2012 presents the scene from a slightly wider perspective: the right arm of the saint is depicted in its entirety, while the detail of the lamb includes the head and part of the animal’s neck, and as regards the raised cross, the top part is visible and a portion of the sky above it. The paintings both date from the 1630s.