The Beheading of John the Baptist

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Beheading of John the Baptist

Rembrandt van RijnLinkedCulture matchlcp-d6807541bb3d

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

The Beheading of John the Baptist portrays the events told in the Gospel of Mathew (14:3-1). Rather than concentrating on the gory decapition or the presentation of John's bloody head, Rembrandt chose the moment when the executioner has raised his sword and turned his body, ready to swing, a moment when John anticipated his fate. It was a moment when the act did not have to occur, when the executioner cold have relented, when Herod--who looks on frm the shadows--could have have called a halt to the madness. The executioner has tossed off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, ready to do his job. He trains his gaze on the vulnerable John, who kneels facing away from him. John is bare from the waist up. His camelskin cloak is wrapped around his loins. His cruciform staff lies on the ground, with the scroll proclaiming the Messiah's arrival still attached. With eyes closed and head lowered, he clasps his hands in prayer. At right, an African boy holds the charger that will soon bear John's head. Immediately above John we can make out two women. Though the biblical account does not place them at the site of the execution, they are probably Herodias and Salome, who set the tragic events in motion. Netherlands, Europe

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Minneapolis Institute of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Minneapolis Institute of Art’s catalogue record

Dated
1640
Artist
Rembrandt van Rijn
Department
European Art
Credit
Gift of Ray and Carol J. Bergeson
Medium
Etching

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Minneapolis Institute of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

This 1640 etching by Rembrandt captures not the moment of death, but the last instant it could still be prevented. The executioner's sword is raised, his sleeves rolled up, his gaze fixed on the bare-chested John kneeling in prayer below him - hands clasped, head bowed, eyes closed. To the right, a young boy already holds the charger waiting for John's head. Rembrandt's genius was moral, not graphic: he forces the viewer to sit inside that unbearable pause before the irreversible.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

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To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Minneapolis Institute of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
146823
Object Type
Prints, Works on Paper
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Classification” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Object Name” · the first available of several museum fields
Creator
Rembrandt van Rijn
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Artist” · copied as is
Medium
Etching
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
European Art
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Credit Line
Gift of Ray and Carol J. Bergeson
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Credit” · copied as is
Date
1640
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · copied as is
Begin Year
1640
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1640
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

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The Beheading of John the Baptist

Nov 6, 2026 · Short

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