Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape (c. 1445): Art, History and Details

Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape (c. 1445) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Petrus Christus (Netherlandish, c. 1410–1475/76).

The work and its context

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

The overall style of this painting suggests that it was painted by an artist closely associated with the Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The facial structure of the saint as well as the artist’s treatment of his cloak are typical of van Eyck’s follower, Petrus Christus. Christus was active in the city of Bruges and was a probable pupil and successor to Jan van Eyck, with whom his paintings have often been confused. Here, Christus depicts John the Baptist as an isolated, monumental figure without his typical hairshirt or other references to his life. This approach is derived from Claus Sluter’s monumental image of Saint John from the portal at Champmol and from manuscript illuminators working for Philip the Bold and his brother Jean de Berry. Here, John holds the Lamb of God, a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and a reference to John’s proclamation of Christ’s redemption of humankind. Upon his death, Christus was succeeded by Hans Memling as the next great painter in Bruges.

Object facts

• Title: Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape
• Date: c. 1445
• Creator attribution: Petrus Christus (Netherlandish, c. 1410–1475/76)
• Culture: Flanders, Bruges
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on panel
• Dimensions: Unframed: 40.2 x 12.5 cm (15 13/16 x 4 15/16 in.); Painted surface: 39.6 x 11.5 cm (15 9/16 x 4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1979.80

A detail from the museum

In the background is the Blacksmith's Gate, originally built in 1297, which still stands in the city Bruges, although it has been rebuilt multiple times over the centuries.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980)
• "La chronique des arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts XCV, no. 1334 (March 1980).
• Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. "A Newly Discovered Eyckian St. John the Baptist in a Landscape." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 4 (1981).

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.