John the Baptist (c. 1410): Art, History and Details

John the Baptist (c. 1410) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Robert Campin (Netherlandish, 1375/79–1444).

The work and its context

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

According to tradition, John the Baptist wears a hair shirt under a white cloth, associated with newly baptized Christians. The flag bearing a red cross symbolizes resurrection. In marked contrast, the background features a lavish gold-patterned silk. The display of such luxurious fabrics continues an ancient tradition of using the finest objects in the worship of God. This painting has been cut down along the lower edge and would have originally shown a full-length image of the saint. It was probably the right wing of a triptych, with John the Baptist gazing upon a central image of the Virgin and Child. Campin first settled in Tournai around 1405-6 as a free master of the guild of painters, and he bought citizenship there in 1410, which suggests he was born elsewhere. Although heavily indebted to contemporary masters of manuscript illumination, Campin displayed greater powers of realistic observation than any other painter before him. He was one of the first artists to experiment with the use of oil-based colors, in lieu of egg-based tempera, to achieve the brilliant color typical of this period.

Object facts

• Title: John the Baptist
• Date: c. 1410
• Creator attribution: Robert Campin (Netherlandish, 1375/79–1444)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on oak panel
• Dimensions: Framed: 25 x 20 x 3 cm (9 13/16 x 7 7/8 x 1 3/16 in.); Unframed: 17.3 x 11.6 cm (6 13/16 x 4 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1966.238

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Lee, Sherman E. “Golden Anniversary Acquisitions: September 10 through October 16.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 7 (September 1966): 181–284.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.