The Menil Collection The Menil Collection

This panel, which has been cut down on the top, left, and right sides, depicts the steep, rocky mountain range that channels the Jordan River through the desert valley that divides Israel and Jordan. On the right bank, three angels watch as John the Baptist on the left bends to baptize the loin-clothed Christ, who stands waist-deep in the waves, blessing the water with his right hand. In keeping with Biblical descriptions of the event, a white dove, embodying the Holy Spirit, dives between the craggy peaks. In the lower left, an axe illustrates one of John’s sermons, which warned that “even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees” (Matthew 3:10, English Standard Version). This iconography was developed in Byzantium (now Turkey) in the 15th century and adopted and disseminated by Cretan painters in the following two centuries. Its geographic origins are difficult to determine with certainty. The naturalistic, rippling pattern in the water and the Greek inscription argue for a Cretan origin. Its technique is more conservative, however, than one expects to find in Crete, and it is rare for Greek artists to depict water covering Christ’s body. Scholars have suggested Bulgaria as an alternative possible origin based on similarities with an early 16th-century image of the Raising of Lazarus in Sofia.