Spanish Caravaggist (?)

Hello everybody,
I would like to ask if someone can find similarities with any artist / works. To me it seems quite unique and I can't say much more.
Thanks in advance!

 

Happy to take a look, but could you also post the entire piece (front and back) including the frame?

Any idea on the medium?

 

Is this the one you're talking about or another copy?
https://www.1stdibs.com/art/paintin...tist-oil-on-canvas-17th-century/id-a_2913371/

 

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Yes. I saw the item on many websites and i was intrigued by its manner.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not considering any purchase. it's only about curiosity.

 

Beyond similarities of style with Caravaggio...? Why do you think it's Spanish, by way? (I ask because the painting is located in Milan.) Here's a list of Caravaggisti if you're interested in (an informal) attribution but suspect seller of $8,000 painting would have done his best with that before offering for sale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggisti#Spanish

Debora

 

I see the stylistic resemblance to Caravaggio:



https://www.art.com/products/p48116...s-1604-5.htm?upi=Q19OJ8W0&PODConfigID=4986478

Have doubts it is meant to be John the Baptist, who was never a shepherd. He only appears with a sheep symbolically: a lamb that represents the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.



There is something amusing about the Lamb of God wandering around browsing while John sleeps.

It could be some other famous sleeping shepherd, such as Endymion:

 

I'm going to (respectfully) disagree. Don't see why it couldn't be St. John the Baptist. (This is he by the Spanish painter Juan de Juanes.)

Debora

 

Maybe Spanish b/c it has El Greco tendencies in my eyes. very minor ones.


(I always thought that was ironic: The Greek is known as Spanish. Now Italian?)

 

I also think it's John the Baptist -- mostly because of the reed cross (assumption that it's a cross, granted).

EDIT: Plus, I think the "lamb" may be a "ram" and Caravaggio did include a ram with John the Baptist.

 

A haloed man in tattered clothes, holding a walking staff, with a haloed (cruciform because it represents Jesus) lamb looking up to him, is a different proposition from a man with no indicators of sainthood and a full grown sheep browsing behind him. The Lamb of God, being a metaphor, is not known for its appetite.

 

I would point out that the sleeping man under discussion is young, clean, well-fed & handsome. Not the gaunt, ragged man who has been wandering in the desert.

Where's this?

 

El Greco was a painter in the Late Renaissance, a period called "Mannerism." The style originated in Italy and spread.

Debora

 

The ovine creature in OP's painting of interest is pretty clearly a ewe, another thing that argues against John.

 

St. John was depicted with a lamb at all stages of his life. Here he is with Jesus as an infant.

Debora

 

And speaking of El Greco... Here is his treatment of the same subject (St. John.)

Debora

 

okay, so what's the fountain/water allegory? more clue.
I'm outta my league here. The stream is 'so straight' (not natural at all) as if shot out of a squirt gun into a small pool. What's that mean? Is it even a stream, or a stick?

 

caravaggio and el greco lived at the same time, both dieing in the 1610s. Don't see how a later piece (presumably if it's a caravaggist of the 17th C as the piece alleges) can't be influenced by both.

 

IMO, Caravagio's John isn't gaunt or ragged at all.

Not sure if you're asking about Caravagio's ram or why I think the OPs may be intended to be a ram. Caravagio's John with a ram:





I think the following is meant to be a horn. But now that I google breeds, some ewes do have horns, so I don't know.

PS: I'm not meaning to say it's an effective depiction of a horn.




I do still think it's meant to represent John the Baptist.

 

This one hits many of the conventions for depicting John the Baptist: pilgrim's staff with crosspiece lashed on to make a cross; a little banner on it with Ecce Agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God; as a child sharing a childhood with Jesus; drinking from the scallop shell of a pilgrim:

 

"I do still think it's meant to represent John the Baptist."

I'm going out on a lamb here, but ewe never know b/c I sure ram confused.