1620s
Painted wood, height 154 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Juan Martínez Montanés carved numerous wooden statues that were painted and integrated into large altar screens called 'retablos' (retables) for churches. The present standing figure of St John the Baptist is connected by documents to a retable in the Sevillan Convento de la Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion. The right hand of the figure reaches across his body to point, certainly toward a missing Lamb of God on the altar of the monastery church.
