PROVENANCE: Le Chevalier de Lorraine, Paris, until 1727; Duc d'Orléans, Palais Royal, Paris, until 1792; Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, by family descent until 1944; Christie's, London, February 18, 1944, lot 28; Mary van Berg collection, New York; Sotheby's, London, July 25, 1969; Julius Weitzner, New York and London, 1968-69; BJU, 1969.

Like Guido Reni, Domenichino initially studied with Denys Calvaert but left his studio because of the teacher's horrible temper and greed. He went on to study in the Carracci Academy in Bologna and assisted the Carracci on some important fresco cycles. However, Domenichino soon began to get his own commissions through his friendship with the newly elected Pope Gregory XV. Later in life he moved to Naples and attracted the notice of the most prominent patrons. Threats against his life made by jealous Neapolitan artists caused him to flee to Rome in 1634, but he returned to Naples the next year after receiving assurance that he would be safe. He continued to work on the decoration for the Naples Cathedral chapel until his death, probably caused by poisoning.

Interestingly, this painting of John the Evangelist (Jesus' disciple) contains a cup with a serpent, symbolizing the legend of an attempted poisoning that John survived. In this sense, the image becomes a memento mori for the artist himself, foretelling the apparent cause of his own death.

As the present work demonstrates, Domenichino absorbed the idealizing art of Raphael, the great works of antiquity, and the classical style of the Carracci during his many years in Rome. The work's appeal has been lauded throughout the centuries, beginning in 1798 when the artist James Berry wrote that the St. John "is perhaps not outdone by any half figure in the world." And in 1854 when the famous art critic G. F. Waagen saw the painting at Castle Howard, he said it "is one of the most indisputable and admirable pictures existing. It is elevated, refined, and intense in feeling, and most delicately blended, in a warm and harmonious tone of the greatest clearness." Finally, both Townsend (1995) and Pepper (1984) have recently appraised it as one of the most important baroque paintings in America.