Description: The youthful Baptist in contemplation, seated beneath a tree

Metal point, heightened with white gouache on grey, prepared paper. 25,8 x 18,6. Top right, bottom and right margin of the drawing lacking and replaced (Vasari)

[...] The drawing verso has been dated by Patrik Reuterswärd to the years after the completion of the Brancacci Chapel in S. Maria del Carmine in Florence, 1484-85. Referring to an article by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, he points to Domenico Cavalca's "Vita di San Giovanni Battista" from the first half of the fourteenth century as Filippino's source of inspiration. He interprets the axe as a symbol of the future activity of St. John and the sleeping dog as a sign of his prophetic gifts. The dog is sometimes also seen as an attribute of Melancholy, which tallies well with the saint's mood.
An attitude similar to that of Saint John's can be found in a seated boy in the left foreground of Filippino's "Adoration of the Magi" (National Gallery, London) as well as in a young soldier sleeping in Filippino's fresco "Saint Peter Liberated from Prison" (Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine, Florence). [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 1006 Verso]

Foto: Cecilia Heisser/Nationalmuseum 2018

Johannes döparen sittande under ett träd