Saint John the Baptist preaching

On 5 September 1785, Paret sent from Bilbao to the administrator of the parish of Santa María de Viana ‘the idea for the chapel of San Juan del Ramo’ and informed him of the preparatory drawings he was working on. These were ‘the particular and indispensable studies’ that illustrated the plan and were to be used as a guide for the execution of ‘the cartoons and second drawings of the size of what is to be painted in tempera in that [chapel], with which I consider that the most arduous part of the work has been accomplished’. With these words, the artist alludes to the importance of drawing in the process of executing this type of painting, which required precise planning.

The value of these drawings becomes clear in the following paragraph of the same quoted letter, in which Paret stated, ‘I do not refuse to deliver the drawings of the whole work for these gentlemen’s greater satisfaction, provided that after finishing them there would be someone to whom they could be sent and who will return them to me in the shortest period of time so that I can pursue the work I have to do for them. Should the same gentlemen be pleased to consider me for the position of bearer of said paintings, and that furthermore I shall bring the aforementioned drawings of the rest of the work, I will comply, not without the adjustment of the work, the price of which I must calculate by means of these same drawings’.

The drawing Saint John and the first disciples of Jesus (D005983), intended like its companion for the four scenes of the interior cupola on the life of Saint John, is the only one of the entire extant set whose paper has not been cut out and which also bears a signature with name and seal. It is not unlikely that the others were also signed. However, the conservation status of the paper after having been used as training models by Pedro González de Sepúlveda and Vicente López would have led to their having been cut and eventually to the subsequent loss of the signature.

In July 1786, Paret reported the complications he had in working on the chapel paintings concurrently with the king’s commission for the views of the ports on the Cantabrian Sea. He thus suggested that the painter Diego Díaz del Valle (1740–1817) should copy ‘my designs, coloured and on adjusted canvases, sending them to me so that I could help with my own hand on the canvases themselves if deemed necessary, so that the said professor would only have to copy them in a large-scale proportion; that is, not only to shorten time, but to ensure that said work comes out as I have conceived it, without refusing to let me personally go and see how it is going, which I believe we will have no doubt that our friend, with whom I have every confidence in my way of taking decisions, will perform well’.

Out of the set of drawings for the interior cupola, only six are known that can be considered presented works: the four for the pendentives and the two analysed here (Saint John the Baptist preaching, D003107 and Saint John and the first disciples of Jesus, D005983), all of which are in the Museo del Prado. The iconographic plan of the paintings for which these two drawings were intended is described as follows: ‘On the keystone of the arch corresponding to the main altar is the Baptist preaching in the Jordan desert, the composition for which must necessarily be numerous. [...] On the side of the epistle, the hero can be depicted instructing Saint Andrew, later an Apostle, of the coming of the Messiah, whom the saint, seeing him from afar, knew without having ever seen him before, uttering “Ecce Agnus Dei” etc’.

These two drawings with scenes from the life of the saint reveal Paret’s working method. Both were transferred to the interior cupola with remarkable faithfulness, without significant noteworthy formal or iconographic changes. Only the logical spatial variations can be perceived as a result of adapting the flat format of the drawing to the curved space of the architecture, which required a slight widening at the base. In order to achieve this faithfulness, the drawings were gridded in black pencil so they could be enlarged and transferred. The value Paret placed on these drawings made him draw the lines very subtly, barely visible so as not to damage their appearance. It is also worth mentioning that the grids on the two drawings follow different proportions: small and across the entire sheet in the case of Saint John and the first disciples of Jesus; and large, and only marked in the lower part of the composition where the figures are in Preaching. It is logical to think that this difference has to do with practical matters in the workshop, where it is possible to conceive the existence of other intermediate drawings, probably destroyed for their purely utilitarian value, which would have been used in the enlargement processes with more marked-out grids.

Both works demonstrate Paret’s versatility: his ability to create complex compositions with a wide array of characters without detracting from the main figures. In Preaching there is a dialogue between the saint and his followers, divided into different groups according to their status, whereas in Saint John and the first disciples the dialogue is established only with Saint Andrew, and it is the gestures and gazes that draw the eye to the edges of the composition.

Paret’s artistic culture – nourished by his training with Charles de La Traverse (1726–1787), by whom he was greatly influenced in his travels to Italy and his extensive library – suggests the existence of many references throughout his work. In the first composition, the figure of the Baptist has been compared to Michelangelo’s Christ in The Last Judgement. However, it is also possible to appreciate the influence of the engraved models to which Paret probably had access. For example, those by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770) with heads of bearded men are reminiscent of the two turbaned figures listening to the Baptist in this work, in addition to the prints by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781) with oriental types. Particularly, the model of the old man with a staff shares similarities with the one included in the print of the same subject engraved by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo from a painting by his father (Matilla, J. M. in: G. Maurer, Paret, Museo del Prado, 2022, pp. 235–8.)