While it is first listed in 1666 at the Alcázar, where it hung alongside Ribera’s Fable of Bacchus or Teoxenia (of which only three fragments have survived: two at the Museo del Prado and one in a private collection), this work’s subject and dimensions suggest it may originally have been commissioned for the Buen Retiro Palace. Along with Finoglia’s Triumph of Bacchus (P7309), Poussin’s Sacrifice to Priapus (São Paulo, Museu de Arte Assis Chateaubrand) and other paintings, it would have b

Saint John the Baptist kneels before his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, asking for their blessing before embarking on his life in the desert. Two shepherds, perhaps those who will accompany the young man on his journey, contemplate and discuss what is happening. According to the Will of Charles II (1701), it was part of a gallery of six paintings depicting events in the life of the saint located in Madrid’s Buen Retiro Palace at the time. Four of them were painted by Massimo Stanzione: The Bi

The painting is one of a series of six canvases on the life of that saint, four of them by Stanzione: The Birth of John the Baptist announced to Zacharias (P256), The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (P257), The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Baptist leaving his Father’s House (P291). In the other two, one by Artemisia Gentileschi, The Birth of Saint John the Baptist (P149) and a now lost one by Paolo Finoglio. They were painted for the chapel in the hermitage dedicate

The painting is one of a series of six canvases on the life of that saint, four of them by Stanzione: The Birth of John the Baptist announced to Zacharias (P256), The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (P258) and Saint John the Baptist leaving his Father’s House (P291). In the other two, one by Artemisia Gentileschi, The Birth of Saint John the Baptist (P149) and a now lost one by Paolo Finoglio. They were painted for the chapel in the hermitage dedicate

An angel announces to the elderly Zacharias the birth of his son, John the Baptist. The painting is one of a series of six canvases on the life of that saint, four of them by Stanzione: The Birth of John the Baptist announced to Zacharias, The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (P257), The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (P258) and Saint John the Baptist leaving his Father’s House (P291). In the other two, one by Artemisia Gentileschi, The Birth of Saint John the Baptist (P149) and a now lo

Tras haber sido considerado obra de Bartolomeo Manfredi por Ainaud (1947) y Pérez Sánchez (1965), Floriana Conte (2012) ha propuesto la autoría de Massimo Stanzione para una obra análoga a esta, documentada a través de una fotografía del archivo de la Fondazione Federico Zeri de la U. de Bolonia (inv. 107393). La pintura, de medidas casi coincidentes (130 x 96 cm), carece de la bandeja que el soldado sostiene con la cabeza cortada del Bautista, elemento que en el lienzo del Prado resulta obvio f