Composition Study for 'The Baptism of Josias by St James the Greater'

Author: Albert Elen

This is one of several compositional studies by Maganza in a group of thirteen sheets originating from an album owned by the Glasgow collector Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1867), which came to the museum with the Koenigs Collection in 1935 (S 18-30).^[1]

According to Byam Shaw (1967), who was the first to publish our drawing in greater detail, it might be a first design for one of the scenes from the life of St James the Great painted by Alessandro Maganza and his son Giovanni Battista (1513-1586) around 1603-10 for the church of Santi Filippo e Giacomo in Vicenza. In fact, there are several paintings of this subject by Maganza mentioned by Marco Boschini (1605/1613-1678/1704) in his guide to the marvels of Vicenza (1676), including two large ceiling paintings of the ‘Martirio di san Giacomo’ in the church of San Giacomo dei padri Somaschi (the Santi Filippo e Giacomo)^[2] and a ‘s. Giacomo maggiore, & un Compagno, che vien battezato dallo stesso santo, poi martirizato’ in the Oratorio Segreto of San Girolamo, at that time, but now lost.^[3] The description of the latter painting exactly fits our scene.

The apostle St James was one of Christ’s disciples and the first martyr. He was executed under king Herod Agrippa, together with the scribe Josias, who had himself baptized on their way to the palace.^[4] When the latter refused to renounce his new faith in front of the king he was also condemned to death. Our drawing depicts the scene of St James baptizing Josias with water from a cup at the ultimate moment before their beheading. The executioner with his long sword stands ready behind the kneeling saint; the king and a crowd look on in a palatial setting. The identification of the rarely depicted scene is confirmed by the inscription below, which is in the same shade of brown ink as the drawing and was probably written by the artist himself. The meaning of the number ‘C4 98’ is not clear, but perhaps is a shorthand dating (Created April 1598). It had not previously been noticed that the handwriting is exactly the same as that of an extensive inscription on the reverse of a secure Maganza drawing in New York, which is a fragment of a list of paintings, probably by the artist himself.^[5]

In the Oratorio Segreto of San Girolamo there were twelve other paintings, all by Maganza, including ten other scenes of martyrdom of the apostles, apparently a cycle.^[6] Another drawing in the Rotterdam group is probably a composition study for another painting in the oratory series, the martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul (S 24).^[7]

Our drawing is stylistically very close to another by Maganza in the Rotterdam group, which is probably a design for a Martyrdom of St Lawrence (S 19). Both compositional studies are executed in pen over an underdrawing in black chalk and share the same rapid and occasionally strong handling of the pen, inadvertently causing the ink to blot slightly in places.