The museum houses an icon of John the Baptist in the form commonly known as the “Angel of the Wilderness.” He is depicted frontally full-length, with golden wings behind his back. With his right hand, he makes a blessing gesture. With his left arm, he supports a golden chalice with his head, while holding a white unfolded scroll with the text of a prayer in his left hand.

The saint’s arms and legs are partly uncovered which is a symbol of suffering in iconography. His face and the face of his severed head look grave: his eyebrows are drawn together in a slight frown, and his mouth is tightly closed. His hair is not tangled, like in many other icons, but falls rather gently to his shoulders in four locks. The beard also ends in locks, contributing to the overall regularity of the image.

The figure of John the Baptist is surrounded by scenes from his life. In the top left corner, there is the Nativity of John the Baptist. Below, in the archway, his mother Elizabeth is depicted on a high bed, covered with a red veil. Below is the scene of the washing of the newborn John. In the top right corner, there is the scene of the finding of John the Baptist’s head, and below it, against an architectural background, is the scene of the beheading.

This is a typical depiction of John the Baptist as the Angel of the Wilderness in Russian iconography. In general, the prophet’s iconography is extensive and diverse. The first depictions of John the Baptist emerged in early Christian art with the composition “Baptism of Jesus.” In Byzantine art, the image of John was accompanied by symbols that revealed various aspects of his service to God and veneration.

In the 10th and 11th centuries, icon painters often depicted “The Prayer of John the Baptist in the Wilderness.” In mid-11th-century miniatures, John was depicted with an ax cutting into the trunk of a barren tree. At the turn of the 12th century, a mosaic image of John with his head severed was added to the façade of the Church of Saint George of the Genoese in Palermo (the image has not been preserved to this day). In the 12th century, images of “John the Baptist in the Wilderness” appeared, combining all the iconographic elements in a single composition with the image of the saint praying. Such depictions can be seen in the fresco of the Annunciation Church in Veliky Novgorod and icons from Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai.

In the late 13th century, John the Baptist began to be depicted with wings, indicating his service as an earthly angel and his lifestyle as a heavenly man.