Surrounded by twenty-two men, women, and winged angels, a young man, wearing only a white loincloth, stands in a shallow body of water facing another man who kneels on the bank next to him and pours water onto his head in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale skin. At the center of the composition, the man in the water, Jesus, stands with his body angled slightly to our right. He is slim with shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair, and he raises his hands to his chest, fingertips almost touching. To our right, the man who trickles water onto his head, John, faces our left in…
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The Baptism of Christ

Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altar (German, active c. 1475/1510)

c. 1485/1500

Medium
oil on panel
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
painted surface: 104.3 x 169.7 cm (41 1/16 x 66 13/16 in.) ; support: 105.7 x 170.4 cm (41 5/8 x 67 1/16 in.)
Culture
Cologne
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CNE-R
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

View at the National Gallery of Art

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