The date of entry of the panel into the collection is unknown. It is documented with certainty for the first time in the Fideicommissary list of 1833. It is probable that the acquisition of the painting, of modest quality, should be considered as an attempt to recreate, rather than to compensate for, the existence in the collection of a work sold in 1801 to ‘Mr. Durand of Paris’ together with a group of paintings of considerable interest, as can be seen from the description in the inventory of 1693. It may be a derivation from Leonardo’s famous prototype kept in the Louvre. The subject depicted, albeit with a different iconography, and the closeness of the measurements make the hypothesis of an acquisition after 1801 most plausible.
Borghese Collection, probably after 1801 (Della Pergola), first mentioned in the Inventory Fidecommessario Borghese of 1833, p. 34. Purchased by Italian State, 1902.
The date of entry of the panel into the Borghese Collection, documented with certainty for the first time in the Fideicommissary list of 1833, is unknown, although Della Pergola speculated that it had been acquired after 1801 (1955, pp. 78-79). In fact, in 1801 an ancient replica of the St John the Baptist by Leonardo (Louvre, Parigi, inv. 775; MR 318) was sold together with other important works including Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus, now in the National Gallery in London (inv. NG172).
This replica, mentioned in previous inventories, from that of 1693 to that of 1790, was sold in 1801 to the antiquarian Durand of Paris (Della Pergola 1955, pp. 78-79). The inventory of 1693 described it as ‘a painting of two and a half palms of a St John pointing with his finger to the letters Agnus Dei, No. 188, with a gilded frame on a panel by Leonardo da Vinci’.
The panel now in the collection, of inferior quality, ‘without value’ (Longhi 1928, p. 354), is therefore a variant of the famous model by Leonardo, which might be seen as a purchase by the Borghese family in an attempt to recreate, rather than compensate for, the previously sold replica of St John the Baptist.
This behavior reflects the nineteenth-century collecting criteria, which focused on documenting the historical identity of the collection, including through works that, although lacking any real aesthetic quality, were iconographically and symbolically connected to the original models.