The panel presents the Baptist according to the traditional iconographyTerms that refer broadly to the study of subjects and themes in works of art. Iconology, which is based on the results of iconography, is the more wide-ranging and comprehensive. One of the principal concerns of iconography is the discovery of symbolic and allegorical meanings in a work of art.
—Willem F. Lash, Grove Art © Oxford University Press: with shaggy hair and beard, camel-skin tunic, prophetic scroll in his left hand, and right hand extended in blessing in the oriental fashion. It is evidently the fragment of a polyptychType of object with several panels, usually an altarpiece, although it may also fulfil other functions. The polyptych normally consists of a central panel with an even number of side-panels, which are sometimes hinged to fold. Although in principle every object with two panels or more may be called a polyptych, the word is normally used as a general term for anything larger than a triptych. As with diptychs and triptychs, the size and material can vary.
—Victor M. Schmidt, Grove Art © Oxford University Press whose style, format, and proportions suggest that it was executed in the circle of the Sienese master Simone Martini (Sienese, active from 1315; died 1344) around 1320–1330. In the 1930s, Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà concluded that the painting formed part of the same polyptych to which the panel of Saint Peter [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Lippo Memmi, Saint Peter, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Photographer: Gérard Blot in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and that of Saint Paul [fig. 2]
[fig. 2] Lippo Memmi, Saint Paul, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, gold ground, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Coudert Brothers, 1888 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York belonged. She added to these the Madonna and Child [fig. 3]
[fig. 3] Lippo Memmi, Madonna and Child, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Image: bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin/Joerg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Some years later, Helen Comstock linked the panel being discussed here with another of Saint John the Evangelist [fig. 4]
[fig. 4] Lippo Memmi, Saint John the Evangelist, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, Yale University Art Gallery, Bequest of Maitland F. Griggs, B. A. 1896. Image: Yale University Art Gallery, now in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, and with those of Saints Louis of Toulouse [fig. 5]
[fig. 5] Lippo Memmi, Saint Francis, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Image courtesy of the Ministerio per i Beni e le Attività Culturali and Francis [fig. 6]
[fig. 6] Lippo Memmi, Saint Louis of Toulouse, probably c. 1325, tempera on panel, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. At this point, the reconstruction of the dismantled altarpiece, consisting of seven panels, might have seemed complete. But not all art historians accepted it: some detected sufficient stylistic disparities between its separate components to cast doubt on their common origin. For example, Klara Steinweg (1956) considered the Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist and Saints Peter and Paul to be parts of two different polyptychs, the second of which might be identified, she proposed, with that recorded by Giorgio Vasari (Florentine, 1511 - 1574) as a work by Lippo Memmi in the church of San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno in Pisa. Gertrude Coor (1961) also found this hypothesis attractive. Though her main interest was the stylistic problems relating to the seven panels now dispersed among various museums, she cogently pointed out that the provenance of the two panels now in Siena, from Colle Val d’Elsa, rendered improbable the identification of the complex with the one in Pisa described by Vasari. Coor later developed her reconstruction of the polyptych by observing that the original frame that has survived on the panels in New Haven and Siena presupposed the existence of a second tier of smaller panels above the central Madonna and Child and the six lateral saints. In her view, a bust of Christ in the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai and the two saints of the Vallombrosan Order in the Lindenau-Museum in Altenburg (Germany) could have formed part of this upper register. Cristina De Benedictis (1974) proposed an alternative reconstruction: the panel in Washington, together with those in Berlin, New Haven, New York, and Paris, formed part of a five-part complex formerly in the church of San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno in Pisa. This altarpiece, in her view, likely would have been furnished with a predellaA horizontal band, cut from a single plank, below the main panels of an altarpiece. The appearance of the predella can be seen as part of the development of the altarpiece from a single panel to a large, multilevel polyptych. The small figures or scenes painted on the predella formed part of the integrated program of the altarpiece, providing a visual commentary on the major images above and at the same time physically raising the main panels, thus improving their visibility.
—Ronald Baxter, Grove Art © Oxford University Press consisting of a series of busts of apostles, now divided among the National Gallery of Art and other collections.