Guido Reni, 'Christ embracing Saint John the Baptist', about 1640

Christ embracing Saint John the Baptist

Guido Reni

Not on display

About the work

Overview

This scene depicts an intimate moment between Christ and Saint John the Baptist, here identified by his camel-skin garment and reed cross.

The pair are more frequently portrayed meeting as young children, in an episode drawn from biblical apocrypha, or during Christ’s baptism, which was performed by Saint John. Guido Reni has instead chosen to paint the youths embracing in a nondescript location. John clasps his hands reverently as he turns towards Christ, who looks back with a serene expression.

The loose brushwork and pale, limited colour palette indicate that this work was painted late in the artist’s career. The figures are rendered in fluid, sweeping brushstrokes, and lack the finish and detail evident in earlier works. Reni’s late works typically represent devotional subjects in simplified, half-length compositions, as here.

In-depth

This scene depicts an intimate moment between Christ and Saint John the Baptist, here identified by a camel-skin garment and reed cross – his customary attributes. Guido Reni has emphasised Christ’s divinity by encircling his head with a golden halo and giving his skin an other-worldly glow.

Paintings of Christ and John the Baptist more commonly show the pair as young children, an apocryphal subject popular among artists in the seventeenth century, or as adults, standing in the river Jordan during Christ’s baptism, performed by Saint John. Reni has instead chosen to portray the youths embracing in a focused, tightly cropped composition, against a nondescript brown background. The two figures lock eyes; John clasps his hands in reverence as he turns towards Christ, who looks back with an expression of serenity. The composition, with figures placed close to the picture plane, allows us to share in the intensity of this quiet moment of affection and devotion.

Reni had painted this subject previously, in about 1621, in a larger full-length picture for the church of the Gerolamini in Naples (now in the Museo dei Gerolamini, Naples). We don‘t know who commissioned or first owned the National Gallery painting, but it was not unusual for the artist’s studio to receive requests from clients for reduced-size copies or variants of his more successful compositions. This painting is likely an example of such a request from a collector who had seen the earlier painting in the Gerolamini.

X-ray images reveal that this canvas was initially used for a different subject. National Gallery conservators have identified traces of a face in the upper right of the canvas, unrelated to the present composition. This work was painted around 1640, in the final years of Reni’s life. The abandoned composition, along with the economic reuse of the canvas, is perhaps linked to the artist’s mounting debts at this time. According to Reni’s biographer, Carlo Cesare Malvasia, the artist began painting more rapidly in an effort to keep up with persistent creditors, and worked on numerous paintings at once. The practice ’wearied and confused' him, and perhaps led to dramatic changes of mind, as is evident here.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Christ embracing Saint John the Baptist
Artist: Guido Reni
Artist dates: 1575 - 1642
Date made: about 1640
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48.5 × 68.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1844
Inventory number: NG191
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Jeremiah Harman

Provenance

In the collection of Vincenzo Camuccini at Rome in 1804 and bought from him by Irvine, 1805. Purchased by Jeremiah Harman; Jeremiah Harman sale, London, 18 May 1844 (lot 78), bought by the Gallery.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Michael Levey, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1824

W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England Since the French Revolution, London 1824
1844

Christie, Manson & Woods, A Catalogue of the Very Celebrated Collection of Pictures, of Jeremiah Harman, Esq., Deceased, and Removed from Higham House, Woodford, London, 17 May 1844 - 18 May 1844
1853

National Gallery, Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index, London 1853
1878

H. Blackburn, Illustrated Catalogue to the National Gallery: Foreign Schools, London 1878
1888

E.T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery Including, by Special Permission, Notes Collected from the Works of Mr. Ruskin, London 1888
1971

E. Baccheschi, L'opera completa di Guido Reni, Milan 1971
1971

M. Levey, The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1971
1978

D. Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World, Princeton 1978
1982

H. Brigstocke and W. Buchanan, William Buchanan and the 19th Century Art Trade: 100 Letters to his Agents in London and Italy, London 1982
1984

D.S. Pepper, Guido Reni: A Complete Catalogue of His Works, Oxford 1984
1986

Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1986
1988

D.S. Pepper, Guido Reni: L'opera completa, Novara 1988
1993

R. White and J. Pilc, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XIV, 1993, pp. 86-94
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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You've viewed 6 of 10 works

Guido Reni, 'Christ embracing Saint John the Baptist', about 1640

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Guido Reni