John the Baptist

For a long time this panel looked wrong. A heavy old cleaning had stripped its final glazes, and a 19th-century restoration left a dull greenish cast, so John the Baptist stood in a sour, earthy light that had nothing to do with Moretto da Brescia. A modern restoration lifted away three layers of patina and repainting, and the picture came back cold and silvery, with a few brighter accents, the way the painter conceived it around 1530. John stands full-length on a rise, against soft hills, the last of the prophets and the announcer of Christ's coming. He was made to be seen from an angle, because this panel is one wing of a dismembered triptych. Its companion, a Saint Peter, hangs nearby, and between them once stood a central figure, probably Christ himself, now lost. Both panels came from the Manfrin family, a Venetian noble house, and entered the Accademia in 1856, where the painting now hangs in room 13 as number 332.