St. John the Evangelist

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Bronze sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 17

Inventory

PV 09311

Material and technique

Bronze, opaque black lacquer

Author

Follower of Michelangelo (Central Italy?)

Dating

Late 16th century

Dimensions

30.5 x 10 x 9 cm.

Origin

Barsanti Collection (1934)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

John is depicted mournfully, wracked by grief, as he gazes, his held tilted back, at Christ on the cross. Pollak and Santangelo compared this work to a group of three bronzes, Christ on the Cross between the Two Thieves, at the Museo del Castello Sforzesco in Milan, that are attributed both to a follower of Michelangelo and more tentatively to a Lombard sculptor. A replica of the two thieves, which is both smaller and of lesser quality, is held at the Louvre and was attributed by Migeon to a Venetian artist who had been influenced by the Florentine school in the second half of the 16th century. The work, as studies have highlighted, shows similarities in its gestures and physiognomy with Alessandro Vittoria’s marble statue of St. Jerome. Pollak and Santangelo, perhaps accepting Migeon’s opinion, attributed this St. John to the “manner of Alessandro Vittoria”.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Pollak, Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti (Trecento-Settecento), catalogue of the collection, Bergamo 1922, no. 84, p. 123; A. Santangelo, Museo di Palazzo Venezia. Catalogo delle sculture, Rome 1954, p. 46.