Baptism of Christ

Artist:: Workshop of Veit Stoss (German, Hob am Neckar ca. 1445–1533 Nuremberg)

Date:: ca. 1480–1490

Geography:: Made in Nuremberg, Germany

Culture:: German

Medium:: Limewood with paint and gilding

Dimensions:: 48 × 40 × 3 in. (121.9 × 101.6 × 7.6 cm)
Mount (Back board with shelf and 2 clips): 52 × 44 × 3 5/8 in., 90 lb. (132.1 × 111.8 × 9.2 cm, 40.8 kg)

Classification:: Sculpture-Wood

Credit Line:: Rogers Fund, 1912

Accession Number:: 12.130.1

Not on view

Saint John the Baptist baptizes Christ in the presence of an angel. The shallow relief was once part of an interior wing to a lost altarpiece. The composition follows a popular engraving by Martin Schongauer of about 1480. The Nuremberg sculptor Veit Stoss employed numerous assistants for his altarpiece in the Church of the Virgin in Cracow, Poland, and it was probably one of these assistants who carved this relief.

#3030. Baptism of Christ

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[ Lippmann, England (sold 1912)]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Gothic and Renaissance art in Nuremberg, 1350–1550," April 8, 1986–June 22, 1986.

Nuremberg, Germany. Germanisches Nationalmuseum. "Gothic and Renaissance art in Nuremberg, 1350–1550," July 24, 1986–September 28, 1986.

Beeson, Nora B., ed. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. no. 52, p. 222, fig. 52.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Germanisches National Museum, Nürnberg. Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg 1300-1500. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. no. 88, pp. 236-37.

Husband, Timothy B., and Charles T. Little. Europe in the Middle Ages. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. no. 140, pp. 152-153.

Chapuis, Julien, ed. Tilman Riemenschneider: Master Sculptor of the Late Middle Ages. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1999. no. 27, pp. 268-70.

Wixom, William D. "Riemenschneider in America." In Tilman Riemenschneider: Master Sculptor of the Late Middle Ages, edited by Julien Chapuis. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1999. p. 150.

Wixom, William D. "Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan: 1400 to 1530." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 64, no. 4 (Spring 2007). p. 29.

Stein, Wendy A. How to Read Medieval Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. p. 66, fig. 13.

Essays
Late Medieval German Sculpture
Late Medieval German Sculpture: Polychromy and Monochromy
Life of Jesus of Nazareth

Timelines
Central Europe (including Germany), 1400-1600 A.D.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, Europe in the Middle Ages
"Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan, 1400–1530": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 64, no. 4 (Spring, 2007)
How to Read Medieval Art
Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg, 1300–1550

Department

Medieval Art (7,098)

Artist / Maker / Culture

Veit Stoss (1)

Object Type / Material