Nativity Saint John the Baptist

The panel with the Nativity, together with the one depicting Saint John the Baptist, constituted the lower register of a polyptych, now dismembered, which originally featured Saint Martin in the lower left side and a Christ of Sorrows between the two panels of an Annunciation in the upper register. The traditional attribution of the polyptych to Francesco Morone accurately identifies its cultural factors, but does not resolve the question about the autography of the panels, which only partially reveal the artist's finesse of execution.

The image of Saint John the Baptist turns out to be the best and most accurate part of the whole, the only one that can certainly be attributed to Francesco Morone; the complexions have at least partially preserved a pictorial layout of great softness and brightness. Elsewhere, a technically much less refined execution prevails, very summary in the rendering of naturalistic details, which shows the hand of a collaborator of the master.