- Period
- Byzantine
- Date
- 1300s
- Collection
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object no.
- 1999.229.b
Reliquary Box with Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist (lid)
Unknown maker, 1300s
Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Bruce Ferrini in memory of Robert P. Bergman · Public domain
- Maker
- Unknown maker
- Date
- 1300s
- Medium
- tempera, gold, wood
- Dimensions
- Overall: 23.5 x 9.9 x 9 cm (9 1/4 x 3 7/8 x 3 9/16 in.)
- Period
- Byzantine
The record
Why it matters
John the Baptist--the first person to recognize Christ as the promised savior and the one who baptized him in the Jordan River--was one of the Byzantine Empire’s most revered saints. This box shows four scenes from the saint’s life: John’s martyrdom, Christ’s baptism, John’s birth, and the announcement of his birth to his parents. It probably once housed one of the saint’s relics; several were kept in churches and monasteries in Constantinople, including fragments of his skull and right arm and locks of his blood-clotted hair.