Saint John the Baptist and the saints
Ca. 1840. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
This painting depicts Saint John the Baptist between Saint Peter, Saint Mark, Saint Jerome and Saint Paul. It is a copy of the work by Cima da Conegliano, of the Venetian church of Santa Maria dell’Orto. […] The extreme interest of Espalter in the paintings of that [Venetian] school that he saw both in Venice itself, to where he travelled, and in the collections of Florence, could be due to some extent to the transcendence of some of the figures depicted in them. [...] However, on the whole, these copies are probably more likely to be the result of the artist’s fine sensitivity to colour, perhaps from his time in France near Gros. Nonetheless, it is clear that this coincides with one of the most traditionally appreciated factors in Spanish collecting, and also that he was not the only Spanish pensioner to be interested in this school.
G.Navarro, C., Joaquin Espalter en Italia. A propósito de las aguadas y pinturas del Museo del Prado. En. Ars Iberica et Americana. Spanien und Deutschland - Kulturtransfer im 19 Jahrhundert, Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2007, p.148-174
