''Saint John the Baptist'' is a

High Renaissance In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

on walnut wood by

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

. Likely to have been completed between 1513 and 1516, it is believed to be his final painting. Its original size was . The painting is in the collection of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. In November 2022, it was loaned to

Louvre Abu Dhabi The Louvre Abu Dhabi ( ar, اللوفر أبوظبي; french: Louvre Abou Dabi) is an art museum located on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It runs under an agreement between the UAE and France, signed in March 2007, that a ...

for two years as part of the museum's fifth anniversary.

Subject matter

The work depicts the figure of

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

in isolation through the use of

chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...

, with the figure appearing to emerge from the shadowy background. The saint is dressed in

fur Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...

s, has long curly hair and is smiling in an enigmatic manner reminiscent of Leonardo's famous ''

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a Half length portrait, half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described ...

''. He holds a reed

cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

in his left hand, while his right hand points up toward heaven, similar to the figure of Saint Anne in Leonardo's '' Burlington House Cartoon''. According to

Frank Zöllner Frank Zöllner (born 26 June 1956) is a German art historian who has been a professor of art history at Leipzig University since 1996. He is a prolific scholar on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci, and author of one of the two modern ''ca ...

, Leonardo's use of sfumato "conveys the religious content of the picture", with the "gentle shadows mbuingthe subject's skin tones with a very soft, delicate appearance, almost androgynous in its effect".

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

claimed that for Leonardo, Saint John represented "the eternal question mark, the enigma of creation", and noted the sense of "uneasiness" that the painting imbues. Barolsky adds that: "Describing Saint John emerging from the darkness in almost shockingly immediate relation to the beholder, Leonardo magnifies the very ambiguity between spirit and flesh. The grace of Leonardo's figure, which has a disturbingly erotic charge, nonetheless conveys a spiritual meaning to which Saint John refers when he speaks of the fullness of grace from God." The model for the ''John the Baptist /

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

/ Angelo incarnato'' series was

Salaì Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, better known as Salaì (1480 – January 19, 1524) was an Italian artist and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci from 1490 to 1518. Salaì entered Leonardo's household at the age of ten. He created paintings under the name ...

Dating

The dating of ''Saint John the Baptist'' is disputed. It was seen by Antonio de Beatis in Leonardo's workshop at

Clos Lucé The Château du Clos Lucé (or simply Clos Lucé), formerly called Manoir du Cloux, is a large château located in the center of Amboise, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. It is located in the natur ...

; his diary entry giving a

terminus ante quem ''Terminus post quem'' ("limit after which", sometimes abbreviated to TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ("limit before which", abbreviated to TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items.. A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest da ...

of 17 October 1517. Traditionally, the painting has been considered the artist's last, and has been dated to 1513–1516; Leonardo's ''sfumato'' technique here being considered to have reached its apogee. Some experts, however, have compared the hand of Saint John to a similar work by a pupil in the

Codex Atlanticus The Codex Atlanticus (Atlantic Codex) is a 12-volume, bound set of drawings and writings (in Italian) by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest single set. Its name indicates the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo notebook pages, which was us ...

, dating the commencement of the picture to around 1509. The pose is also similar to that of a sculpture of the same subject completed after 1510 for the

Florence Baptistery The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John ( it, Battistero di San Giovanni), is a religious building in Florence, Italy, and has the status of a minor basilica. The octagonal baptistery stands in both the Piazza del D ...

by Giovanni Francesco Rustici. Leonardo is thought to have given Rustici technical advice for his commission; it is possible that one artist could have influenced the other with the idea for the pose.

Provenance

''Saint John the Baptist'' was apparently part of the French king Francis I's collection at Fontainebleau in 1542. In 1625, King

Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...

received the painting from

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

of France in return for a

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

– the ''Holy Family'' – and Hans Holbein's ''Portrait of Erasmus''. In 1649, Charles's collection was sold, whereupon the painting entered into the hands of the banker Eberhard Jabach. After a spell in the possession of

Cardinal Mazarin Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis X ...

, in 1661 the work once again returned to the King of France –

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

. Following the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, the painting entered the collection at the Louvre, where it remains to this day.

Influence

Prior to this work, Saint John had traditionally been portrayed as a gaunt ascetic. Leonardo's innovative depiction proved influential upon

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...

's workshop; several portraits of Saint John painted around 1517–1518 attributed to Raphael and

Giulio Romano Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...

show a similarly youthful saint in isolation, with a strong contrast between the dark background and the illumination of the figure. Also numerous copies and variations of ''Saint John the Baptist'' made by

Leonardeschi The Leonardeschi were the large group of artists who worked in the studio of, or under the influence of, Leonardo da Vinci. They were artists of Italian Renaissance painting, although his influence extended to many countries within Europe. As ...

exist. File:John the Baptist - Salai.jpg, ''John the Baptist'' –

File:Leonardo da Vinci - Angelo Incarnato.jpg, ''Angelo Incarnato'', drawing of

by Leonardo, from a folio of Leonardo's, File:Bernardino Luini. Angel of Annunciation. After Leonardo da Vinci..jpg, ''Angel of Annunciation'' –

Bernardino Luini Bernardino Luini (c. 1480/82 – June 1532) was a north Italian painter from Leonardo's circle during the High Renaissance. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described as having ...

File:Giampietrino_-_St._John_-_Hermitage.jpg, ''Saint John'' –

Giampietrino Giampietrino, probably Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli (active 1495–1549), was a north Italian painter of the Lombard school and Leonardo's circle, succinctly characterized by S. J. Freedberg as an "exploiter of Leonardo's repertory."Freedberg, 1993 ...

References

External links

Interactive online application
by the

C2RMF The National Centre for Research and Restoration in French Museums (C2RMF, ''Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France'') is the national research centre in France responsible for the documentation, conservation and restorati ...

for the exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci's Saint John the Baptist in Milan", organized by the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, Milan City Council and sponsored by Eni, featuring zoomable high resolution scientific imagery (color, IR, X-ray, UV etc.) and commentary on the painting. The viewer is based on
IIPImage
'.
''Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle''
exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on ''Saint John the Baptist'' (see index)

{{Authority control Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci Paintings in the Louvre by Italian artists 1516 paintings Paintings depicting John the Baptist