Saint John the Baptist

John the Baptist sits on a stone ledge with a thin reed cross over his shoulder, and the scroll in his hand winds into an S. Its words are ECCE AGNUS DEI, behold the Lamb of God, what John said when he saw Jesus coming toward him at the Jordan. Where the band twists, the word AGNUS shows its back and reads in reverse. In the altarpiece this panel sat in the upper tier beside the Virgin, and John was looking down and gesturing toward the child on her lap, the lamb of his text. Higher still there was once a long panel of the dead Christ held up by angels. A letter of 1770 still mentions it, and by 1780 descriptions of the altarpiece no longer do. In the 1880s it belonged to the collector William Graham, and where it has gone since is unknown.