San Giovanni Battista rende testimonianza (c.1600)

Carracci, Annibale (1560-1609)

San Giovanni Battista rende testimonianza (Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness)
c.1600
Oil on copper, 54.3 x 43.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

Annibale launched the vogue for landscapes in which nature is transformed by the imagination into an idyllic setting for religious or mythological stories. The subject of this picture is based on the Gospel of John: “The next day John [the Baptist] seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The event preceded the baptism of Jesus by John. This beautifully preserved work was described in 1678 in the collection of the Farnese family in Parma and was later part of the Orléans collection in Paris. (MET)