John the Baptist in the Wilderness
Artist
Francesco Albani
(Italian, 1578 - 1660)
Depicted
John the Baptist
(Judean, 6 BCE – 32 CE)
Dateca. 1600
CultureItalian
MediumOil on copper
ClassificationPaintings
ProvenancePossibly Cardinal Girolamo Boncompagni (1621–1684), Palazzo Archivescovo, Bologna. Probably acquired in Italy by François-Annibal d’Estrées (1572/73–1670), Rome and Paris; by inheritance in the d’Estrées family; by 1727, Louis, duc d’Orléans (1703–1752), Paris; Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans (1725–1785), Paris; Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans (1747–1793), Paris; sold in 1791 with the French and Italian paintings of the Orléans collection to vicomte Edouard de Walkiers, Brussels; sold in 1792 to Walkiers’s cousin, comte François Louis Joseph Laborde de Méreville (d. 1801), Paris and London; (consigned from 1792–98 to Jeremiah Harman, London); (sold to Michael Bryan [1757–1821], London, acting on behalf of the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, the 5th Earl of Carlisle, and Lord Gower); Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, and George Granville Leveson-Gower, later 1st Duke of Sutherland, London; (sold Orléans sale, Mr. Bryan’s Gallery, Pall Mall, London, 26 December 1798, lot 22, for 200 guineas, to John Julius Angerstein). By 1851, Robert Stayner Holford (1808–1892), Dorchester House, London; Sir George Lindsay Holford (1860–1926), Westonbirt, Gloucestershire; (sold Holford sale, Christie’s, London, 15 July 1927, lot 39, as school of Annibale Carracci, for £39–18s, to Arthur U. Newton; New York); John Ringling (1866–1936), Sarasota, Florida; bequest in 1936 to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida.
Credit LineBequest of John Ringling, 1936
Object numberSN115
Albani began his career in Rome as Annibale Caracci's assistant and adopted his master's predilection for situating his works in impressive landscapes. For centuries, the subject of St. John the Baptist in the wilderness, where the saint lived in seclusion until emerging to perform baptisms in the Jordan River, had provided artists with an opportunity to showcase their skills in landscape painting. This work is painted on copper, a popular support for smaller cabinet paintings in the 16th and 17th centuries.
On View
On viewLocation
DimensionsFrame: 25 3/8 × 20 11/16 × 2 3/4 in. (64.5 × 52.5 × 7 cm)- Museum of Art, Gallery 09, Wall East
Image: 19 3/8 × 14 13/16 in. (49.2 × 37.7 cm)
Frame (Sight Size): 18 11/16 × 14 in. (47.5 × 35.6 cm)
Frame (Interior Rebate Size): 19 13/16 × 15 1/16 in. (50.3 × 38.3 cm)
Domenico Ghirlandaio and Workshop
c. 1500
