Baptism of Christ

Baptism of Christ

Veit Stoss

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.