A young man wearing only a loincloth kneels at a river’s edge, facing a man holding a bowl over his head with two winged angels nearby in this almost square painting. Three of the people are pale skinned, one is tan, and all have dark hair. Jesus kneels at the bottom center of the composition. Saint John the Baptist, the man to our right, has tanned skin and is wrapped in a tawny brown cloak. He holds a tall staff in one hand and extends the bowl over Jesus’s head with his other. A white dove hovers above in a butter-yellow starburst. The two angels to our left have dark gray wings that…
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The Baptism of Christ

Alessandro Magnasco (Italian, 1667 - 1749)

c. 1740

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 117.5 x 146.7 cm (46 1/4 x 57 3/4 in.)
Culture
Genoese
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CIS-B
Credit line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

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