Ecce Agnus Dei (John the Baptist as a Child with a Lamb)

A lamb, frequently an attribute of John the Baptist, is also referred to in the inscription on the crucifix; this is due to the fact that John the Baptist preached the arrival of the Messiah. There are several replicas of the scene of the baby John the Baptist at a spring with a lamb. Referring to the painting first offered in the antiquarian bookshop of Alessandro Orsi in Milan, there are several recorded works with the identical theme, which are adapted on various levels and which are attributed to Cerano’s circle.

In particular, the well known version in Berlin, which has been in that collection since 1841/1842, and which for a long time was ascribed to Cerano but was recently identified as the work of Melchiorre Gherardini, who trained and worked at Cerano’s workshop, finished some of his works and married into his family, is close to the replica in Bratislava. The variation presented in the Briganti collection is also ascribed to him.

We can see Gherardini’s more distant connection to Cerano’s work in other paintings; that is why the version in Koeliker’s Milan collection was attributed to an anonymous painter of Lombardy who created it according to Cerano. The versions offered by the Pandolfini, Semensato and Dorotheum auction houses are closer to this painting. 

In addition to the collection seals, there is a secondary designation on the back of the Bratislava painting, according to which it was created by Correggio’s student, Giovanni Battista Rondani. A similar secondary designation of the creator is found on a drawing in London (the British Museum) by Giorgio Vasari with the theme of Christ’s baptism. The Oratorian priest Resta is the author of the additional attribution.

Zuzana Ludiková ● LUDIKOVÁ, Zuzana - BURAN, Dušan. Talianska maľba = Italian Painting. Bratislava : Slovenská národná galéria, 2013. 242 strán. ISBN 9788080591748.