The Youthful Saint John the Baptist in the Desert
1753 - 1754. Oil on panel. Not on displayPainted with remarkable delicacy, probably from life, in this panel Mengs captures the artless fascination with which the saint presents to the world the message of the Redeemer’s arrival, inscribed on the scroll. The figure’s soft luminosity reveals the influence of Correggio (1493-1534), which was decisive for the early years of Mengs’s Roman period.