The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 17, 2025

An oil painting of five people in a room, all with light skin tones. In the foreground, there is a man writing on paper and a woman holding a baby. In the background, there is a woman laying in bed with a green canopy and a woman standing near the bed, holding a plate with items in it.

The Birth and Naming of John the Baptist

1496–99

Juan de Flandes

(Netherlandish, c. 1460–1519)
Flanders, early 16th Century
oil on wood
Framed: 99 x 60 x 7.5 cm (39 x 23 5/8 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 88.4 x 49.9 cm (34 13/16 x 19 5/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1975.3
Location: 110B Late Gothic

Did You Know?

Flemish artists are famed for their attention to minute detail. Here the artist paints a domestic setting from his own time period, complete with details like a brazier for heating in the lower right corner and concave mirror above the bed.

Description

Typical of Flemish art of the period, this scene suggests a comfortable home of the late 1400s in the Netherlands to frame the story of a biblical birth. Elizabeth, mother of Saint John the Baptist, rests after her labor, while her cousin, the Virgin Mary, presents the newborn to his father, Zacharias. Having lost his ability to speak when he doubted an angel’s prophecy of the child’s birth, Zacharias writes down his son’s name. At this moment, his speech is restored. This painting was once part of an altarpiece commissioned by Queen Isabella I of Castile, known as the Catholic (1451–1504), for a monastery near Burgos.
  • Monastery of Miraflores, Spain
    ?-1975
    (Frederick Mont, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1975-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 2 (February 1976): 31–71. Reproduced: p. 36; Mentioned: p. 67, no. 59 www.jstor.org
    Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. “Birth and Naming of St. John the Baptist Attributed to Juan de Flandes: A Newly Discovered Panel from a Hypothetical Altarpiece.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 5 (May 1976): 119–135. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 119-135, figs. 1,5,6,14, 27 and Cover www.jstor.org
    Merrill, Ross M. “A Technical Study: Birth and Naming of St. John the Baptist.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 5 (May 1976): 136–145. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 136-145 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 83 archive.org
    Roberts-Jones, Philippe. The History of Painting in Belgium: From the 14th Century Tot [Sic] the Present Day : from the Earliest Masters of the Old Southern Netherlands and the Principality of Liège to Our Contemporary Artists. Brussels: Renaissance du Livre, 1995. p. 99
    Borchert, Till, and Andreas Beyer. Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting, 1430-1530. New York, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson, 2002. cat. 116, fig. 245, p. 217
    Elsig, Frédéric. La naissance des genres: la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas (avant 1620) au Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève. Paris: Somogy, 2005. p. 53, fig. 3
    Silva Maroto, Pilar. Juan de Flandes. Salamanca: Caja Duero (Salamanca). Obra Social y Cultural, 2006. p. 149
    Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. pp. 148-9
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 280
    Harrison, Aidan. "Posts, Rails, Ropes and Bed Bolts: The Early Development of the English Bed." Regional Furniture: The Journal of the Regional Furniture Society 38 (2024): p. 1-30. Mentioned: p. 3; Reproduced: p. 4, fig. 1-2
    Haines, Claudia, Rebekkah Hart, and Emma Lazerson. “Birth.” In Creation and (Re)birth, edited by Gerhard Lutz, and Elina Gertsman, 8-12. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2024. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 9, fig. 8
  • Creation, Birth, and Rebirth. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17, 2024-July 16, 2025).
    Juan de Flandes: The Miraflores Triptych. Museum Mayer Van den Bergh, Antwerp, Belgium (organizer) (September 11-November 7, 2010).
    Jan van Eyck, Early Netherlandish Painting and the South of Europe. Groeningemuseum, Stedelijke Musea, Brugge, Belgium (March 15-June 30, 2002).
  • {{cite web|title=The Birth and Naming of John the Baptist|url=false|author=Juan de Flandes|year=1496–99|access-date=17 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1975.3