Baptism of Christ (1580s): Art, History and Details

Baptism of Christ (1580s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacopo Tintoretto (Italian, 1518–1594).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Based on a passage from the New Testament book of Matthew, this work depicts Saint John the Baptist performing Christ's baptism in the river Jordan, during which the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. The powerful modeling of the bodies and luminous color characterize High Renaissance painting in Venice. Because of Tintoretto's pioneering use of rich color, his work was a crucial source for many later artists.

Object facts

• Title: Baptism of Christ
• Date: 1580s
• Creator attribution: Jacopo Tintoretto (Italian, 1518–1594)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 200 x 286.5 x 14 cm (78 3/4 x 112 13/16 x 5 1/2 in.); Unframed: 169 x 251.4 cm (66 9/16 x 99 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1950.400

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Thode, Henry. Tintoretto. Bielefeld und Liepzig, Germany: Velhagen & Klasing, 1901.
• Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell'Arte Italiana. Milano: U. Hoepli, 1901.
• Holborn, John Bernard Stoughton. Jacopo Robusti Called Tintoretto. London, United Kingdom: Bell, 1903.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.