Rembrandt's interest in developing a new, ethnographically accurate model for the face of Jesus is well documented and evident in his works beginning around 1648. The new head type appears in a series of up to eight small oil sketches developed in his studio, as well as the Supper at Emmaus of 1648 and the Noli Me Tangere of around 1650. Rembrandt made very few paintings in the later 1640s, but nearly all feature the new model of Jesus. This face also appears in etchings including The Hundred Guilder Print (c. 1649) and La Petit Tombe (c. 1652). While several sources confirm Rembrandt's use of a living model to achieve this new image, doubts remain. Did a real young man pose for the sketches, and was he Jewish? Was the new model after life (naar het leven) or from the imagination (uyt den gheest)?

In July 2013, a small (25 × 28.4 cm.), Rembrandtesque panel painting of the head of John the Baptist on a platter appeared on the art market. It was immediately clear that the same model was employed in this work as the one used for Rembrandt's novel image of Jesus. The painting is now in a private collection and is here reproduced in the scholarly literature for the first time (fig. 11.1 and pl. 11.1).