John the Baptist (6th c.) The second early icon, of John the Baptist, is not as well preserved. At the top of the panel we may still see the two small medallions, of Christ on the left, and of the Virgin on the right, forming, together with the head of St. John, a simple, albeit reshuffled, Deesis, expressing the idea of the intercession. St. John is dressed in a brown tunic and mantle, and in a sheepskin (melote), often emphasized in later icons. Weitzmann believes that "the highlights in the face underlining John's visionary power and the fleeting brush strokes on his garments still reflect strongly the classical tradition. We see here one of the oldest icons in existence: whether it could belong to the fifth century is an open question, and more safely we may ascribe it to the sixth. We do not know where the icon might have been painted. Since it is so different in style from the three great masterpieces. . . that we attribute to Constantinopolitan workshops, we hesitate to propose an origin in the Capital for this icon and consider Palestine a possible place of origin" (1978, 52). http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/byzant.html#John