The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
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View in the galleryAbout this painting
Behind the killing stand a prison window and a gate. David M. Stone read them as a warning the knights of Malta would have recognized: the motif comes from Philippe Thomassin's print for the Order's Statute XVIII, Prohibitions and Penalties, where errant knights peer out of a prison window.
Caravaggio was accepted as a Knight of Obedience on 14 July 1608; by late August he was in trouble. On 1 December the Order met in this oratory and expelled him like a rotten and fetid limb.
In the blood below the Baptist's head he signed himself Fra Michelangelo, brother.
Sources: David M. Stone, 'The Context of Caravaggio's Beheading of St John in Malta', Burlington Magazine 139, no. 1128 (March 1997), pp. 161-170, read 2026-09-24 · St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, 'Caravaggio', read 2026-09-24 · THINK magazine (University of Malta), 'Caravaggio', read 2026-09-24
But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish.
Mark 6:27 · Douay-Rheims (Challoner)
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 18,632 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.