St. John the Baptist
C&E Canessa (Ercole Canessa; 1868-1929), Naples; Max Lyon (d. 1913?), Paris, ca. 1885; his sale, London, Christie's, 18-20 and 25-27 May 1914, lot 15 (as Italian, 16th century), sale halted and all remaining lots, possibly including the present, withdrawn; Count Andrea di Robilant, Venice; his sale, Collezione del Palazzo dei Dogi Mocenigo di S. Samuele a Venezia, Galleria Bellini, Florence, 22-27 May 1933, lot 234, pl. XXVIII (as Arte Veneziana del XVII Sec.); Alice Tully (1902-1993), New York.
St. John the Baptist, clad in an animal skin and cloak, holds a shell in his right hand. This refers to his role baptizing Christ. He used the shell to gather water in the River Jordan. This sculpture is one of at least five known variants of this figure cast in bronze, some with gilding. It's likely that these figures were based on the earlier fifteenth-century work of the sculptors, Michelozzo and Donatello. They were cast later, however, at the very end of the 16th or beginning of the 17th centuries. Given the baptismal theme, it is possible that the figure was once part of a fountain. This sculpture was given to the Morgan in 1996 as part of the bequest of Alice Tully, a renowned New York opera singer and arts philanthropist.