In 1534, the greengrocers and watermelon sellers of Prato, a city northwest of Florence, commissioned a marble font for the church of Santa Maria delle Carceri. On top of the font stood a bronze St. John the Baptist. The figure—which was originally gilded—was depicted as if pouring the water miraculously gathering in the basin. This is the only existing signed bronze by the sixteenth-century Florentine Francesco da Sangallo.
The surfaces of this solid-cast bronze are inventively finished with textures produced by different tools and techniques. The saint’s hair falls in ropy locks, quite different from the coarse, curling hair of the animal hide forming his cloak, the underside of which is striated to convey its roughness. Long, taut tendons and muscles ripple through the saint’s lean body. Set in a sorrowful face, the large eyes, with their deeply hollowed pupils, befit a saint who sees beyond the present as the prophet and precursor of Christ.
In the 1890s, the bronze was separated from its marble support and began a new life as a bronze statuette. Since 1916, it has been displayed on a small base, on a table at the Frick. On the occasion of the move to Frick Madison—and thanks to a generous gift from Fabrizio Moretti—the Frick commissioned a facsimile of the original marble font by Giovan Francesco Pagni, which is still in Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato. This is a unique opportunity to appreciate the original context of the sculpture, the only bronze statuette at the Frick that was made to decorate a church space.
St. John Baptizing
To the principal civic heroes of Florence—Hercules and David—a third must be added: John the Baptist, patron saint of the city. Sangallo's bronze figure of this saint in the act of baptizing, a masterpiece of sixteenth-century Florentine sculpture, is the most profoundly expressive Renaissance bronze in The Frick Collection.
Sangallo is known to have produced a dozen medals during his long career, but St. John is his only authenticated bronze statue. Signed by the sculptor but not dated, the figure was made for the baptismal font of S. Maria delle Carceri at Prato, probably about 1535–38. It was sold by the church before the end of the nineteenth century, and a replica took its place. Other replicas also exist.
The bronze is solid-cast and therefore very heavy. Problems during the casting produced flaws, the most obvious being one in the left arm. But any difficulties experienced in the production of this bronze were secondary to the success of its completed state. The surfaces of the figure are inventively finished, with a variety of textures described by means of diverse tools and techniques. The saint's hair falls in ropey locks, quite different from the coarse, curling hair of the animal hide forming his cloak, whose underside is striated to convey its roughness. Long, streaking tendons and muscles ripple through the saint's spare body. His large eyes, with their deeply hollowed pupils, set in a sorrowful face, portray the saint as one who sees beyond the present, as the prophet and precursor of Christ.
In his youth Francesco accompanied his father to Rome, where in 1506 he witnessed with the young Michelangelo the excavation of the Laocoön. A letter written much later in his life describes how lasting an impression the tortured marble group made upon him. The heightened realism and sometimes intense expressive content of Sangallo's sculpture may reflect the spell of that ancient sculpture.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Stefano Bardini, Florence. Oscar Hainauer, Berlin. J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York. Duveen. Frick, 1916.
Source: Sculpture in The Frick Collection: Italian. Volume III. New York: The Frick Collection, 1970.
