Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Il Baciccio

Padre Resta (1635-1714), Milan;
John Lord Somers (1650-1715), London (L.2981, his numbering d.157);
James Rambo, San Francisco;
Parke-Bernet, New York, 1981

Walter Vitzthum, A Selection of Italian Drawings from North American Collections, Regina and Montreal, 1970, cat. no. 67
F. Petrucci, Baciccio. Giovan Battista Gaulli 1639-1709, Rome 2009, p. 547, under cat. no. C22a.

This grand, high baroque drawing of a woman and child, squared for transfer in black chalk, is a preparatory study for Giovanni Battista Gaulli’s bozzetto, in oil, of The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, in the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome (c. 1693-94) (fig. 1), which is generally considered a modello for his altarpiece of the same subject in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome (c. 1698).¹  The woman and child are studies for the woman holding St. John the Baptist in the lower right section of the bozzetto.

There are a number of preparatory drawings, mostly of single figures, connected to this commission and for the most part they appear to relate directly to the bozzetto rather than the final altarpiece.  There are several differences between bozzetto and altarpiece, the most significant being the pose of Zachariah, who is depicted in the altarpiece standing with his hands raised and brought together in prayer, but who is kneeling with his arms stretched by his sides in the bozzetto.  Due to its high level of finish, there is in fact some debate among scholars whether the painting in the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca is in fact preparatory for the altarpiece in Santa Maria in Campitelli or whether it is simply a variant composition.²

The largest cache of drawings related to the bozzetto are in the Kunst Palast Museum, Düsseldorf, where there are 18 sheets connected to The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, including figure studies for Zachariah.³  Another study for the woman holding St. John the Baptist is in the Louvre.⁴ The same two figures are represented on the recto of a drawing in Düsseldorf but here the woman is depicted nude, which was common practice among artists like Gaulli and Carlo Maratti, and many others, as a first step to ensure the stance and positioning of their figures were entirely correct and realistic, before adding clothing.⁵

^1. F. Petrucci, op.cit., cat. no. C22a (bozzetto) and cat. no. C22 (altarpiece)

^2. Ibid., p. 547, under cat. no. C22a

^3. Ibid

^4. Le dessin à Gênes du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1985 p. 111, cat. no. 96

^5. D. Graf, Die Handzeichnungen von Guglielmo Cortese und Giovanni Battista Gaulli, 2 vols, Düsseldorf 1976, vol. 1. p. 130, cat. no. 392r, vol. II, fig. 509