Die Predigt Johannes des Täufers / Ecce Agnus Dei

This scene of John the Baptist Preaching at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, dated to around 1510 and thus from Bouts's workshop after the master's death, depicts the prophet announcing the coming of the Messiah. The inscription Ecce Agnus Dei—Behold the Lamb of God—was John's recognition of Christ at the Jordan River, the moment connecting Old Testament prophecy to New Testament fulfillment. Workshop productions continued Bouts's theological and formal vocabulary for an enduring devotional market. The extended creative afterlife of Bouts's workshop, maintaining his compositional types through his sons' work, reflects the sustained demand for his specific visual interpretation of sacred narrative.

The outdoor preaching scene is arranged with Bouts's characteristic clarity, the crowd of listeners and the landscape setting rendered with the precise spatial construction and careful figure placement that distinguished his narrative compositions.