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Short (5-20 mins)
DoctrineArt
Anglican

Episode 2 | Visitation | Saint John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading | National Gallery, London

Theologian

Ben Quash


Duration

9.15


Uploaded to YouTube

24 June 2014

Added to Database

25 November 2025


YouTube description

Like Christ, John the Baptist was also miraculously conceived. His elderly mother Elizabeth was also a kinswoman of the Virgin Mary. In this episode, art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash reveal the significance of the meeting of the two pregnant women and their unborn children - an event known as 'The Visitation' - and its commemoration in church liturgy, music and art.

In this episode we visit King's College Chapel to hear the choir sing the 'Magnificat' before returning to the National Gallery to see Workshop of the Master of 1518's 'The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth', about 1515 and Francesco Zaganelli's 'The Baptism of Christ', 1514.

'John the Baptist: From Birth to Beheading' is a series of 10 films sharing the highlights of the collaborative MA course taught by Dr Jennifer Sliwka, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery and Professor Ben Quash, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred, King's College London.

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