Birth of St John the Baptist

Giordano's Birth of Saint John the Baptist depicts the nativity of Christ's precursor — born to Elizabeth and Zechariah in their old age as a miraculous divine gift — as described in Luke 1. The subject was a standard of Counter-Reformation devotional iconography, celebrated on June 24, and was treated across all scales from intimate domestic devotional works to large church altarpieces. John the Baptist occupied a unique position in Christian theology: the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, the one who baptized Christ and declared him the Lamb of God. His birth narrative, with its miraculous elements (Zechariah's temporary muteness, Elizabeth's late-life pregnancy), paralleled the birth of Christ and was treated iconographically in the tradition of the Birth of the Virgin — a domestic interior scene of new motherhood attended by women. Giordano brought his warm domestic manner to this devotional subject, the scene rendered with the physical warmth and psychological intimacy appropriate for a private devotional image.

The interior birth scene is rendered with warm, intimate lighting that creates a domestic atmosphere. Multiple attendant figures in varied activities give the scene naturalistic vitality.