The Baptism of Christ (Verrocchio)

The Baptism of Christ

Artist	Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci
Year	1472-1475
Type	Oil on wood
Dimensions	177 cm × 151 cm (70 in × 59 in)
Location	Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The Baptism of Christ is a painting finished around 1475 in the studio of the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea del Verrocchio and generally ascribed to him and his pupil Leonardo da Vinci. Some art historians discern the hands of other members of Verrocchio's workshop in the painting as well. The picture depicts the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as recorded in the Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The angel to the left is recorded as having been painted by the youthful Leonardo, a fact which has excited so much special comment and mythology, that the importance and value of the picture as a whole and within the œuvre of Verrocchio is often overlooked. Modern critics also attribute much of the landscape in the background and the figure of Christ to Leonardo da Vinci as well^[1] The painting is housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Background and provenance

Andrea del Verrocchio was a sculptor, goldsmith and painter who ran a large and successful workshop in Florence in the second half of the 15th century.^[2] Among his apprentices and close associates were the painters Botticelli, Botticini, Lorenzo di Credi and Leonardo da Vinci. Verrocchio was not himself a prolific painter and very few pictures are attributed to his hand, his fame lying chiefly in his sculptured works. Verrocchio's paintings, as are typical of Florentine works of that date, are in tempera on wooden panel. The technique of painting artworks in oil paint, previously used in Italy only for durable items like parade shields, was introduced to Florence by Dutch and Flemish painters and their imported works at around the date that this painting was created.

The painting The Baptism of Christ was, according to Antonio Billi (1515), commissioned by the Church of S. Salvi, and was later transferred to the Vallumbrosan Sisterhood in Santa Verdiana.^[3] In 1810 it entered the collection of the Accademia and passed to the Uffizi in 1959.^[3] In the 16th century the work was discussed in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters in the biographies of both Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci.

References

↑ http://cavallinitoveronese.co.uk/general/view_artist/45
↑ Ilan Rachum, The Renaissance: an Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1979, ISBN 0-7064-0857-8
1 2 Angela Ottino della Chiesa, The Complete Paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Penguin, (1967) ISBN 978-0-14-008649-2

Brown, David Alan (1998). Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius. New Haven: Yale University Press.

External links

Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on The Baptism of Christ (see index)

Leonardo da Vinci

List of works Science and inventions Personal life

Paintings	Medusa **The Annunciation **The Baptism of Christ The Madonna of the Carnation Ginevra de' Benci Benois Madonna The Adoration of the Magi St. Jerome in the Wilderness **Madonna Litta The Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre version) Portrait of a Musician Lady with an Ermine **The Virgin of the Rocks (London version) *La Belle Ferronnière *Salvator Mundi **Madonna of the Yarnwinder (two versions) The Virgin and Child with St. Anne Mona Lisa *Head of a Woman (La Scapigliata) Leda and the Swan St. John the Baptist

Works on walls	The Last Supper **Sala delle Asse The Battle of Anghiari

Sculptures	Sforza monument (unexecuted) *Horse and Rider

Works on paper	Vitruvian Man *Portrait of a Young Fiancée The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist Self-portrait Studies of the Fetus in the Womb

Manuscripts	Codex Arundel Codex Atlanticus Codex on the Flight of Birds Codex Leicester Codex Madrid Codex Trivulzianus Codex Urbinas

Other projects	De divina proportione Architonnerre Leonardo's crossbow Leonardo's fighting vehicle Leonardo's robot Leonardo's self-propelled cart Viola organista

Leonardeschi	Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio Cesare da Sesto Giampietrino Giovanni Agostino da Lodi Bernardino Luini Cesare Magni Marco d'Oggiono Francesco Melzi Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis Salaì Andrea Solari

Posthumous fame	Cultural references Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations Things named after Leonardo

Wikimedia	Leonardo da Vinci at Wikimedia Commons Leonardo da Vinci at Wikiquote

Key: Attributed *Collaboration with other artists Lost

Authority control	GND: 4432505-8

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