The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1608

Oil on canvas, 361 × 520 cm

St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta

Room VI · Malta (1607–1608)

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Caravaggio, 1608 — Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain

In a prison courtyard the executioner is about to finish off the Baptist with a knife, as a maid holds out the basin and two prisoners watch from a window. Caravaggio's largest painting is also his only signed one: his name is written in the blood flowing from the saint's neck.