Saint John the Baptist as a Boy (Andrea del Sarto)

Saint John the Baptist as a Boy is an oil-on-panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea del Sarto, executed c. 1525, now in the Palatine Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

[1] Vasari's Lives of the Artists mentions two works by Andrea del Sarto showing half-length figures of John the Baptist as a boy.

The face, characterized as a portrait, sends an intense gaze towards the left as in Michelangelo's David, and anticipating the figurations of Caravaggio.

The saint has the camel skin of his hermitage tied to his shoulder, which falls at the waist leaving his chest and arms uncovered.

In his hand he holds the basin with which he imparted the baptism and a rolled up cartouche (an allusion to his typical message "Ecce Agnus Dei"), while the simple cross made of tied reeds is placed in foreground, lower right.