Full title | Saint John the Baptist |
---|---|
Artist | Probably by Bartolomeo Caporali |
Artist dates | active 1467 - 1491 |
Series | Altarpiece: The Virgin and Child with Saints |
Date made | probably 1475-80 |
Medium and support | Tempera and oil on wood |
Dimensions | 122.9 x 48.9 cm |
Inscription summary | Dated |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1881 |
Inventory number | NG1103.2 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
A barefoot saint, dressed in a camel-hair shirt and holding a cross, stands on a marble base. His hair and beard are arranged in extravagant ringlets, and a long banner curls around the cross; we can see part of a Latin inscription on it.
This striking figure is Saint John the Baptist, the biblical hermit saint. He once stood on the left side of a triptych (a painting in three parts) probably made in around 1475–80 by Bartolomeo Caporali.
The inscription quotes some of the words with which John recognised Christ as the Messiah, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ or, in Latin, ‘Ecce Agnus Dei’. Caporali perhaps had trouble with his Latin vocabulary: he has written ‘Eccie’ in place of ‘Ecce’.
A barefoot saint, dressed in a camel-hair shirt and holding a cross, stands on a marble base. His hair and beard are arranged in extravagant ringlets, and a long banner curls around the cross; we can see part of a Latin inscription on it.
This striking figure is Saint John the Baptist, the biblical hermit saint. He once stood on the left side of a triptych (a painting in three parts) by Bartolomeo Caporali. The panel has been cut down at the top and has lost its frame. You can see traces of the beginnings of the frame arch in the gold at the top.
Saint John was a hugely popular saint in the Middle Ages. He was understood as the last of the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah, and as the immediate forerunner of Christ. According to the Gospels, the Holy Ghost came down when John baptised Christ and proclaimed the latter to be the son of God (as shown in Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ). The inscription on the scroll references John’s words to Christ: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ In Latin, the opening phrase is Ecce Agnus Dei; Caporali perhaps had trouble with his Latin vocabulary, as he has written ‘Eccie’ in place of ‘Ecce’.
Caporali handles paints in a way similar to his Florentine contemporary Benozzo Gozzoli, and his interest in detail and decoration is like Carlo Crivelli’s – look closely and you can see the veins in the saint’s hands, the hair on his chest and in his armpits and even the individual hairs in his eyebrows. Like Crivelli, Caporali was clearly very interested in texture, and contrasted the smooth gold of the saint’s flesh with the roughness of the animal skin he wears, and with the deep, crisp folds of the lavish pink and gold fabric wrapped around him.
Caporali has rotated the saint’s feet so that we see them from slightly different angles. Using foreshortening, he has suggested how the saint’s left foot would look if seen directly from the front. One heel is slightly lifted off the ground and both legs cast a shadow on the marble parapet, giving a feeling of three-dimensionality – although he hasn't properly understood how to make the marble seem as if it slopes backwards.
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Saint John the Baptist
Altarpiece: The Virgin and Child with Saints
Two of the most popular late medieval saints – Francis, who died in 1226, and Bernardino of Siena, who died in 1444 – present a young man to the Virgin and Child and a choir of angels; he’s the altarpiece’s patron. In the outer panels stand Saints John the Baptist and Bartholomew.
We don't know where this altarpiece came from, although Caporali seems to have worked mainly in Umbria. Neither do we know who the patron was, though clearly he was a man with a special devotion to the Franciscans, the religious order Francis founded.
This is one of the rare paintings of saints that actually resemble the person they depict. Bernardino was a famous travelling preacher who drew large crowds to his outdoor sermons. Many paintings of him were made immediately after his death – possibly from his death mask, which still survives – and show him as here: an old man with a toothless mouth and sunken cheeks.
Two of the most popular late medieval saints – Francis, who died in 1226, and Bernardino of Siena, who died in 1444 – present a young man to the Virgin and Child and a choir of angels: he is the altarpiece’s patron. In the outer panels stand Saints John the Baptist and Bartholomew.
This kind of altarpiece – a triptych with a larger panel in the centre, flanked by standing saints traditionally set against a burnished gold ground – was the most popular form in Italy through much of the Middle Ages. Large churches would have had multiple altars, each with its altarpiece; even quite small parish churches may have had several.
We don‘t know exactly where this altarpiece came from, though Bartolomeo Caporali seems to have worked mainly in Umbria. We don’t know the patron’s identity, though he was clearly a man with a special devotion to the Franciscans, friars who took religious vows but were not confined to a monastery. Founded in the thirteenth century to provide educated preachers and teachers for a growing urban population, they flourished in fifteenth-century Italy. Men who joined the Franciscan Order took vows of poverty and travelled from place to place, preaching and living on what was given by their listeners.
This is one of the few paintings of saints that actually resembles the person it depicts. Bernardino was a famous mendicant preacher and drew large crowds to his outdoor sermons. He spoke out against ‘vices’ such as fine clothing and homosexuality, and encouraged a devotion to the holy name of Jesus; he is often shown with an IHS monogram, as in Giorgio Schiavone’s painting of him. He wears the ash-grey habit of the especially strict Observant (reformed) Franciscans, known in England as the Grey Friars. Many paintings were made of Bernardino immediately after his death – possibly from his death mask (which still survives) – and show him as here: an old man with a toothless mouth and sunken cheeks.
Caporali was born, died and worked in Perugia and his very traditional style – the smooth, flowing lines, decorative colours and burnished gold backgrounds hark back to International Gothic – was primarily influenced by the work of his teacher Benedetto Bonfigli. Some aspects recall Florentine painting: the radiating lines incised into the haloes are derived from Florentine painters of the 1430s and 1440s, such as Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. The smoothness of his paint handing – look at the skin of the Virgin and the angels – and his way of painting draperies show similarities with Benozzo Gozzoli.
All the panels in this altarpiece have been cut down. The marble parapet would have run horizontally across all three panels, and they had pointed arched tops. The original frame, which was possibly very elaborate, is also missing. There might well have been more panels and possibly a predella.



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