Spanish school; first half of the 16th century.

Spanish school; first half of the XVI century.
"Saint John the Baptist.
Carved and polychrome stone.
Presents faults in the carving and polychrome.
Measurements: 95 x 40 x 29 cm.
Renaissance sculpture representing St. John the Baptist. The carving presents a preferably frontal work indicating that the conception of this work was to be observed from the front and that therefore it surely belonged to a sculptural group of greater size surely assigned to the architecture. As for the carving, the artist shows a mature, bearded Saint John the Baptist, far from the ephebe that was so popular during the Baroque period. We can see in the carving how he raises his right arm, probably because he originally held his right arm. His bearing is aristocratic despite his humble attire. The draped tunic has been expertly carved to simulate skin in the upper area. The kinky beard and the hair have also been chiseled strand by strand, with great delicacy, as can also be seen in the small lamb at his feet. The carving is ascribed to the most classicist current.
The Gospels say of John the Baptist that he was the son of the priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. He retired very young to the desert of Judea to lead an ascetic life and preach penance, and recognized in Jesus, who was baptized by him, the Messiah announced by the prophets. A year after the baptism of Christ, in the year 29, John was arrested and imprisoned by the tetrarch of Galilee Herod Antipas, whose marriage with Herodias, his niece and sister-in-law, he had dared to censure. Finally, St. John was beheaded, and his head given to Salome as a reward for his beautiful dances. This saint appears in Christian art with two different aspects: as a child, a playmate of Jesus, and as an adult, an ascetic preacher. The adult St. John that we see here appears dressed in oriental art with a camel skin sackcloth, which in the West was replaced with a sheepskin that leaves his arms, legs and part of his torso bare. The red cloak he wears at times, as well as in the scene of his intercession at the Last Judgment, alludes to his martyrdom. In Byzantine art he is depicted as a large-winged angel, with his severed head on a tray which he holds in his hands. However, his attributes in Western art are very different. The most frequent is a lamb, which alludes to Jesus Christ, and he often carries a cross of reeds with a phylactery with the inscription "Ecce Agnus Dei".