Saint John the Baptist in the Desert

In October 1812 a notary went through Goya's house in Madrid and listed what was in it. His wife, Josefa Bayeu, had died that June, and the estate had to be divided with their son Javier. This canvas was on that inventory. The city was under French occupation and had just been through a famine, and the picture Goya had in the house was a quiet one, meant for private devotion. The young John the Baptist sits on a boulder, leaning on a long slender cross with a banner that reads Lamb of God, his eyes lifted. The colour is unusually strong for those years. Javier sold the painting after his father's death. It fetched 150 francs at a Paris auction in 1868, drifted through the London trade, and returned to Madrid in 2003, when the Prado bought it.