São João Batista

This Saint John the Baptist hangs in the cathedral treasury of Toledo, and who painted it is an open question. For a long time it went under the name of Caravaggio, dated to about 1598, when he was living in the Roman household of his early patron, Cardinal del Monte. Other scholars give it instead to Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, a younger painter who worked in his manner. Those who argue for Caravaggio point to passages of real brilliance, above all the vine leaves behind the boy, done with a sharpness they say only he could reach. John sits on a red cloak among grapevines, holding a thin reed cross and looking down at a sheep at his feet. The debate has never been settled, and the label still reads attributed.