File:St John the Baptist - Cleveland Museum of Art (29648938958).jpg

St. John the Baptist by Jan Crocq, on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.

Tonnerre limestone, about 1500 AD

Crocq lived in what is now the Netherlands, and was active as a scupltor between 1486 and 1510. This work is an exemplary late Gothic depiction of the saint. It shows him wearing his camel hair garment, over which is laid a luxurious silk tunic embroidered with pearls. Christ, in the symbolic form of the lamb ("Lamb of God"), sits on a book in the saint's left hand. The right hand is missing.

Crocq likely made this statue for Sainte-Chapelle, a chapel in the French city of Dijon favored by the Dukes of Burgundy. The chapel was built in 1172 AD in the Romanesque style, it was rebuilt in the mid-1200s in the Gothic Burgundy style. Reconstruction was slow, however, and it was not until 1400 that it was enclosed. In 1432, Duke Philip the Good chose Sainte-Chapelle as headquarters of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

The chapel featured sculptures of Biblical saints at the clerestory level, and this work was probably one of them.

During the French Revolution, Sainte-Chapelle was gradually dismantled. Its only relic, communion Host blessed by the Pope, was transferred to Saint-Michel in January 1791. Its graveyard was profaned in February 1792; its bells broken and much of the internal woodwork transferred to the Cathedral of Saint-Benigne in May; the choir grilles and clerestory statues removed, and the organ transferred to Saint-Michel in Dijon in June. The church was turned into a jail, during which time the stained glass windows were broken or removed and their frames destroyed.