Francesco Zaganelli, 'The Visitation with the Baptism of Christ', 1514

These two panel paintings formed the altarpiece for the Laderchi chapel in the church of S. Andrea in Vineis, Faenza (the church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and rededicated as S. Domenico). The main panel represents two episodes from the New Testament: the visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, who was pregnant with Saint John the Baptist; and the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan by Saint John. The lunette, or upper panel, shows the dead Christ sitting on his open tomb, supported by two angels.

On 9 April 1504, Giacomo di Francesco Laderchi dictated a will in which he expressed his wish to be buried in the Dominican church of S. Andrea in Vineis, Faenza. He ordained that after his death, his brothers Giovanni Battista and Marco should spend 100 lire in adorning the chapel of the Visitation, which he had paid to have built in 1489. Given the prominence of John the Baptist in this altarpiece, Giovanni Battista was probably the brother most closely involved in the commission. It is likely that the treatment of the subject was suggested by the Dominicans, perhaps with reference to a specific text concerning the Visitation.

Bernardino and Francesco Zaganelli were brothers who lived and worked together, owning everything in common. They often jointly signed their paintings. Bernardino was probably chiefly responsible for the designs, Francesco for the painting. This picture is signed by Francesco.

The composition was clearly influenced by Giovanni Bellini’s Baptism of Christ of about 1500–2 for S. Corona, Vicenza. The figure of Saint John the Baptist is similar, the holy women and angels are standing on a rocky river bank, and Bellini’s angels are also wingless. In Bellini’s Baptism, Christ, God the Father, the dove of the Holy Ghost and John the Baptist’s cup are all aligned on the central axis; this was impossible for Zaganelli, who needed to shift Christ’s baptism to one side in order to accommodate the Visitation. The landscape setting, the voluminous creased draperies and sinewy bodies recall the work of German artists such as Patinir, Dürer and Altdorfer, whose work Zaganelli may have known through prints or seen in north Italian collections.

The paintings were bought by the National Gallery in 1922. Together they constituted the last large and virtually complete Italian Renaissance altarpiece to be acquired by the National Gallery, though the frame is missing. However, they have not always been admired. In 1926, the painter and art critic Roger Fry described Zaganelli’s altarpiece to Vanessa Bell, a fellow member of the Bloomsbury Group, as: ‘a vast horror by him which hangs fortunately in a dark room in the N.G. Do you remember it? It’s a Baptism with J.C. wading disconsolately in a shallow stream, his head bent to avoid two or three vastly overfed Glaxo babies who are trying to avoid falling on him, in the air above.’ Fry appears to have misremembered the number of babies.