St. John the Baptist, 1337-42 (tempera on panel)

Recent studies show that this small late Gothic painting was originally part of an altarpiece dedicated to St. Crescentius. This altarpiece was one of four commissioned by the cathedral in Siena as part of a grand decoration scheme to celebrate the city’s patron saints and the Virgin Mary. All have later been removed from the church and dismantled into individual pieces that are now housed in museums around the world. St. John is shown as the ascetic prophet described in the Bible, a figure who garbed himself in camel’s hair and subsisted on grasshoppers and wild honey. His slightly parted lips appear to be uttering the words on the scroll, “Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord!”