A marble relief representing 'Saint John the Baptist', sold at auction in England in 2019, proves to be a new masterpiece by Tino di Camaino, made in the middle years of his long sojourn in Naples during which time he was in the service of the Angevin royal court and the kingdom's aristocracy.
Datable to around 1330, the relief is associated with some of the most accomplished sculptures executed by Tino for Cava dei Tirreni, south of Naples, a powerful Benedictine abbey placed under royal patronage. The size of the relief and the shape of the frame do in fact indicate that the 'Saint John the Baptist' is the previously missing panel of a marble polyptych intended for a subsidiary altar of the abbey church of Cava, whose reconstruction can now be postulated. The involvement of Tino di Camaino in the requalification of the church's set of images (the artist also sculpted the large marble altarpiece formerly above the high altar) was due to the abbot Filippo de Haya, who was head of the abbey from 1316 until his death in 1331. It was also due in some way to the abbot's brother, Giovanni, whose prominent role in the Kingdom of Naples in the late 1320s and 1330s, second only to that of the king, is now clear, a role that gave him responsibility for a series of architectural works commissioned by the court to Tino di Camaino.