Saint John the Baptist

The work is one of a group of two clay sculptures.
See also Inv. S 270

Donated to the Vicenza Civic Art Gallery in 1968 by the Colbacchini family, these two terracotta works were sculpted by Orazio Marinali in 1708, according to the date engraved on the statue of Saint Jerome.

Today the two pieces are presented as works of a devotional nature independent of each other, each having its own wooden support with a bronze surface. However, it is probable that the sculptor from Bassano originally intended them as a pair. The two small statues were probably made as models for sculptures to be placed in an unknown location.

Working in terracotta, the artist succeeds in reproducing the anatomical details of the figures with great naturalism and defines even the smallest particulars with the same precision: the locks of hair and the beards, the mane of Saint Jerome’s lion and the fleece of the Baptist’s lamb. He also shows great care and attention in rendering the expressiveness of the attitudes and faces of the saints: they are “images filled with an authentic religious spirit: Saint Jerome suggests a sensation of upward movement in the tension of the body, in the posture of the limbs, in the direction of the face outstretched to listen to the word of God; instead Saint John transmits a contrary impression with a quiet posture, his head bowed and arms folded on his chest, seeming almost immersed in his meditation” (De Vincenti).