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Find the Latin words written across the sky, the white dove above the distant mountains and the deer resting in the forest at the left.
This small panel, about 15 by 20 centimeters, is painted in minute detail. Cranach, a close associate of Martin Luther, made his religious pictures tell the Bible story plainly, as Luther wished, and here he even painted the words from the Gospels, “Here is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased,” in Latin across the clouds. Behind the river spreads a landscape typical of German art of the time, with forest, a hilltop city and distant mountains.
oil on wood · Framed: 24.4 x 29.2 x 5.1 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Northern Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Baptism of Christ
- Artist
- Lucas Cranach (German, 1472–1553)
- Date
- 1530s
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- Framed: 24.4 x 29.2 x 5.1 cm (9 5/8 x 11 1/2 x 2 in.); Unframed: 15 x 20.5 cm (5 7/8 x 8 1/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Charles E. Roseman in memory of Charles E. Roseman Jr.
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1472–1553
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.