(Florence circa 1560 – after 1631 Naples)
The Birth of Saint John the Baptist,
oil on panel, 75.5 x 61.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Maurice Ruffini (born 1892), Nemours;
sold in 1930 to Dr. Paul-Henri Clergeau (1877-1941);
Varennes, France (according to an old label on the reverse);
his heirs, Private collection, France;
sale, Osenat, Fontainebleau, 26 November 2017, lot 177 (as Giovanni Balducci);
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Carlo Falciani for confirming the attribution.

The composition of the present painting relates to a version in the Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (inv. no. 132) which was previously given to Giovanni Battista Naldini but has now been restored to Giovanni Balducci, called il Cosci. A preparatory drawing for the composition is conserved in the Albertina, Vienna (inv.no. 589).

Technical report by Gianluca Poldi:

The painting is executed on three vertical boards. Despite the white ground and the transparency of some pigments to infrared radiation, the underdrawing is only just visible in some details, such as under the red cloth of the woman sitting in the foreground, or along some figures: it is a very thin outline drawing, probably made with a black chalk. Almost no changes can be seen by IR reflectography, except for the head of an old woman and a few other details. The painting technique shows a peculiar way of using the brush, alternating thick strokes to glazing and using a straight flat touch to depict the noses on the faces, as well as the use of a thin black-brown line to deliniate some of the profiles.

The rich and impressive range of colours, that can be observed by reflectance spectroscopy, is characterised by subtle changes of hue demonstrating to the ability of the painter in overlapping or juxtaposing different pigments. The colour palette has altered due to typical fading of a pigment, smalt blue, to grey-brown tones in various brown and greyish clothes, as well as in the sky and in the buildings on the left background. Fortunately, this glass-based cobalt containing pigment was not the only blue used by the painter, who preferred azurite in the cloth behind the child, in the vase and some highlights of green garments, generally made with verdigris. Vermillion constitutes the bright red dress of the the handmaiden who pours water into the basin, while a coccid-based red lake (carmine-type) was employed in all the pinkish red colours, including the blanket on the bed, with smalt blue used in the shadows.

A text on the verso of the present painting dated 1934, written with a brown (possibly iron-gall) ink, records the cleaning of a dark oxidized varnish and the removal of a 5 cm wide strip on the right side of the panel.