Standing Saint John the Baptist with The Lamb

A proponent of study after the live model, Girolamo Macchietti formed part of the reform movement in Florentine painting during the third quarter of the sixteenth century; most of his graphic production consists of figure drawings. This exquisitely tonal drawing in a "red-on-red technique" (red chalk on paper-washed ochre), which is typical for the artist, depicts Saint John the Baptist with his frequent attribute of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) at his feet at left. The figure was, without doubt, based on a young male assistant posing in the workshop, and, as in the final painting, his face and anatomy were made to look older and more ascetic. This drawing was a final study for the figure at right in Macchietti's Tabernacle of the Sacrament in the church of San Michele at Pontorme (near Empoli) in the province of Florence. The sheet is squared for proportional enlargement to the final painting surface, and follows the execution of another drawing for the same figure of Saint John the Baptist now the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 1283). The tabernacle project dates to 1575-76, the period following Macchietti's fifteen-month sojourn in France. (Carmen C. Bambach)