This painting is the only surviving scene from the predella (base) of Raphael’s altarpiece for the Ansidei chapel in S. Fiorenzo, Perugia. The main panel of the altarpiece, ‘The Ansidei Madonna’, is also in the National Gallery’s collection. This predella panel would have been placed beneath the figure of John the Baptist. Below Saint Nicholas was a shipwreck, probably relating to one of the miracles he performed. That scene seems not to have survived.
John the Baptist appears as the forerunner of Christ, preaching to a crowd of men (Luke 3: 1–17). He can be identified by his traditional camel-skin costume, which he wears beneath a billowing red mantle, and by the thin reed cross in his left hand. He points towards heaven, referring to the coming of Christ. When the altarpiece was intact, he would also have been pointing to the identically dressed Baptist in the main panel above, who points towards the infant Christ.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Carol Plazzotta and Tom Henry, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings’, vol. 4, ‘Raphael’, London 2022; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
This frame is a replica of a fifteenth-century Italian architectural moulding, made by the Gallery’s framers in 1983. Crafted from yellow pinewood and water-gilded, it consists of a top flat and an ogee moulding, with a chamfered sight edge.
Saint John the Baptist preaching was once part of the predella of the Ansidei Altarpiece in S. Fiorenzo, Perugia; the entire predella was painted on a single horizontal plank of wood, within an engaged gilt frame. This is evidenced by the burr edge on the top and bottom of the panel. The straight cuts on the vertical edges were made when the altarpiece was dismantled.
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Raphael painted this altarpiece for the Ansidei family chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas in the Servite Church of S. Fiorenzo in Perugia. The date MDV (1505) is inscribed in gold on the hem of the Virgin’s mantle.
The altarpiece would have consisted of the main panel, featuring the enthroned Virgin and Christ Child flanked by Saint Nicholas on the right and Saint John the Baptist on the left, and a lower horizontal set of painted panels collectively known as a predella. One of the two narrative scenes from the predella, Saint John the Baptist preaching, is also in the National Gallery’s collection. The other predella scene, which probably depicted a posthumous miracle of Saint Nicholas, is missing. Each narrative scene would have been positioned beneath the saint in the main panel to whom it related.
