St. John the Baptist

Jan Soens (1547-1611)
17th century, Oil on panel

Jan Soens was trained in Antwerp and came to Rome in the 1570s where he worked as a landscape painter with Giorgio Vasari. In Rome, he painted several small landscape paintings – his speciality– for the pope. Soens had already been in the service of Ottavio Farnese for years as a court painter in Parma, where his activity is well documented. He painted altarpieces and works on mythological subjects for the Farnese family, including the eleven canvases now in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.  This St. John the Baptist has been considered a more inspired version of the canvas of the same name in San Martino in Soverzano di Minerbio, which demonstrates the influence of a work executed in Raphael's workshop that is now in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The sinuous curve of the robust young body seems to have been a motif of particular interest, which can also be seen in the corresponding image in which the saint is also beardless.