Artwork · 16th century · Jacopo Bassano

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The Baptism of Christ

Jacopo Bassanoca. 1590Oil on canvas191.8 × 160.3 cm

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At a glance

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On a dark riverbank, John the Baptist raises his arm high to baptize Jesus, while angels stand by holding a red cloth.
Jacopo Bassano, a painter from near Venice, made it around 1590, about two years before his death.
On an almost black canvas, quick, rough brushstrokes let only bodies and light rise out of the dark.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom into the darkness at the top center. A small bird hangs there with its wings spread wide. Only its head catches a faint glow. This is the dove of the Holy Spirit, which the Gospels say came down from heaven when Jesus was baptized.
Look at John's hand, stretched high on the right. He grips something and lifts it up. It seems to be a vessel for pouring the water. The hand and arm are built from only a few thick strokes, yet they feel strong.
Move to the face of Jesus. His head is bowed and his eyes are lowered. One hand is drawn up near his chest. Light pours over his body, but his face stays half in shadow.
Zoom into the angel at lower left. With gray wings folded behind, the angel grips the red cloth in both hands and looks up at Jesus. The cloth is ready to wrap him when the baptism is done. The gold robe and bluish sleeve shimmer against the dark.
Look far off to the right, where the sky meets the hills. Under the black clouds lies a low band of pale light. It is the one place in the picture where the sky opens up. Is the sun setting, or is dawn about to break?

When it was painted

Around 1590, Jacopo Bassano was about eighty. He had been born in Bassano, a small town northwest of Venice, and spent most of his working life there, so the town's name became his own. He had taken over the workshop of his father, also a painter, and now ran it with his sons.

The Bassano workshop was a success. Buyers loved its Bible stories crowded with sheep, cattle and country people. Popular compositions were painted again and again for sale, and the sons carried the family name to Venice.

This canvas is something else. The Met considers it Bassano's last known work. He painted it at about eighty, and it was left unfinished when he died. As he aged, his pictures had grown darker and his brushwork looser and freer, and this one sits at the very end of that road.

Bassano died in his hometown in 1592. The painting came to the Met in 2012 as a gift from Mark Fisch and Rachel Davidson. The museum cleaned and conserved it and studied it scientifically, and published the findings in 2013.

A Met curator has suggested that old age set Bassano free, and that he was painting this picture for himself rather than for a client. Read that way, it is an old master's last experiment.

Now find the dove again in the darkness at the top. That small bird, set down in a few quick strokes, is one of the last lights an eighty-year-old painter left behind.

The painter

Jacopo Bassano

1510–1592

All paintings by Jacopo Bassano →

The Baptism of Christ

Questions to think about

Look for itWhere is the angel in the pink shirt at upper left looking?
Why?Why do you think Bassano painted such a holy moment in so much darkness?
What about you?Right to the end, this old painter kept changing the way he painted. How seriously do we take it when older people try something new?

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