The impact of the Long Depression and an agricultural crisis depressing farm prices due to cheap imports from abroad, however, simultaneously attacked this landowning and banking family's sources of income and caused Sir Philip to seek to sell in 1884 at Christie's where part of the collection was among the first to be sold under the terms of Gladstone's Settled Lands Act.

However, Domenichino and his contemporaries had by then gone out of fashion with British buyers and the Saint John the Evangelist remained unsold.

The painting passed down through that family (later headed by John Christie and known for their connection to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera) for more than a century until it was auctioned in London in December 2009 to an American buyer for £9.2 million.

[3][4][5][6][7] Saint John the Evangelist is depicted as a young man accompanied by his traditional symbol the eagle and two putti.

His gaze is directed upwards towards God as he receives the inspiration for his gospel, emphasised by the strong chiaroscuro light bearing down upon him.

[1] This is also evident in Domenichino's other large-scale treatments of the subject such as Madonna and Child with the Saints John the Evangelist and Petronius and the pendentive in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle.