This drawing is a largely faithful copy of Titian’s St John the Baptist, which he painted for the high altar of Santa Maria Maggiore in Venice, and is now in the Galleria dell’Accademia there. The sheet dates from the last decade of Strozzi’s career when he was working in Venice. He had fled there from his native Genoa and hoped to enjoy success in a new city. Here, Strozzi has transformed Titian’s elegant and statuesque Baptist into a rougher stockier figure, more consistent with his personal style.
Bernardo Strozzi (Italian, 1581 - 1644)
Despite being born to impoverished parents, Strozzi became one of the most accomplished and celebrated Genoese artists of his generation. His rise to fame was by no means smooth. Following some initial artistic training under the painter Pietro Sorri, by 1599 Strozzi had decided to become a Capuchin monk. In 1609 he was allowed to leave the monastery to provide for his ill mother and unmarried sister. Strozzi chose painting as his full time profession and was very successful, but when his mother died in 1630, the monks demanded that he return to complete his duty to the holy order. To avoid imprisonment Strozzi fled to Venice, where his popularity escalated. He painted portraits, including the doge’s, altarpieces, genre scenes, allegories, and won many important public commissions.
![Saint John the Baptist [after Titian]](http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/42/collection/RSA 935.jpg)
