The iconographic type of the Angel of the Desert, extremely popular in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is surprisingly absent in Western art. Western ecclesiastical authorities tended to consider the depiction heretical, preferring to foreground John’s roles as an apostle and a martyr. In Russia, however, the type became the most widespread in the 16th and 17th centuries.

St. John the Baptist is one of the most venerated Christian saints, the last Prophet of the Old Testament, the Forerunner of Christ. St. John’s life was a common subject in Western and in Eastern art. The iconographic type depicting St. John as an angel originated in thirteenth-century Byzantium. One of the earliest examples can be seen in the frescoes from Arilje dating to 1296. The frontal type was common to the sixteenth-century icons of Greece and Crete. This type was spread throughout the Eastern Church in the post-Byzantine period but was considered heretical by Western ecclesiastics.