John the Baptist Preaching

A crowd gathers on a windswept shore as a figure in a flowing red mantle raises his hand and points across the water, his voice carrying over the beach and the anchored boats toward the bright horizon — John the Baptist preaching repentance by the sea. Elias Martin, the Stockholm-born painter best known for his closely observed Baltic coastal views and storm pieces, brought the same luminous air and attentive water-colour to this large late biblical scene, turning a gospel episode into a spectacle of northern light. The canvas, executed probably between 1768 and 1780, is held in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.