Rodin’s anecdotes about his meeting with the model, Pignatelli, and his immediate response underscore the pride the sculptor took in the fidelity to nature of his St. John the Baptist. 

However, a comparison of the photographs of the model and the sculpture demonstrates that Rodin considerably ennobled his subject when he created the work, his second masterpiece, in 1878. The Head of St. John the Baptist has a broader, higher brow and less facial hair than Pignatelli.

Rodin has also related the head to the standard physiognomy of the saint which he inherited from Renaissance sculpture. For the Head of Saint John the Baptist, Rodin presents a portrait bust, grandly conceived and carefully executed in a manner fully within the practice of late-nineteenth-century French sculpture.