Spanish school; second third of the XIX century.

Spanish school; second third of the XIX century.
"The preaching of St. John the Baptist".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It presents faults on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 61 x 76 cm; 71 x 87 cm (frame).
In this work the painter narrates a biblical episode: the preaching of St. John the Baptist in the desert. When the saint went out to preach, he chose the Palestinian desert, an uninhabited place to which crowds of people flocked, as the Gospel narrates: "crowds came to him from all the region of Judea, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and were baptized by him, confessing their sins" (Mk. 1:5). John turned the desert (which was not a dry plain but a wild and uninhabited area) into a hive of people, who came from all over to hear his message, confess their sins and change their lives. St. John chose this enclave precisely because it was the same place where General Joshua, centuries earlier, had entered with the people of Israel to seize the Promised Land and inaugurate a new era of splendor (Jos. 4:13,19).
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 to 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, Jesus' playmate, and as an adult, an ascetic preacher.