Spanish school; second third of the XIX century.

Spanish school; second third of the XIX century.
"St. John the Baptist in prison".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 90 x 117 cm.

In this work, deeply marked by devotion, the painter portrays St. John the Baptist at the moment when he is imprisoned by Herod Antipas, who had arrested him for criticizing his marriage with Herodias. The work is of great relevance, since it is not usual to show this moment in the life of the saint, who is usually represented in the desert, baptizing Christ or as a secondary character in the representations of Salome, who asks Antipas for his head on a silver platter.

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 was 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 Saint John that we see here appears dressed in oriental art with a camel skin sackcloth, which in the West was replaced by a sheepskin that leaves the arms, legs and part of the torso bare. The red cloak she sometimes wears, as well as in the scene of her intercession at the Last Judgment, alludes to her martyrdom. In Byzantine art he is depicted as a large-winged angel, with his severed head on a tray that he holds in his hands. However, his attributes in Western art are very different. The most frequent is a lamb, alluding to Jesus Christ, and he often carries a cross of reeds with a phylactery bearing the inscription "Ecce Agnus Dei".