Apostle St John

religious

This painting and its companion piece, Virgin Mary, were probably intended to be shown at either side of a representation of the crucified Christ, a hypothesis supported by St John's gaze. Since the Virgin and the Apostle have been portrayed as sculptures in a niche, in an architectural setting, the absent Christ would probably have been a statue. Unfortunately, the effect the sculpture would have had in the niche is offset by the extravagant frame.

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About the Artist

Thomas de Keyser

1596 – 1667

Son and pupil of Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621), the outstanding Dutch sculptor, Thomas de Keyser was municipal architect to the City of Amsterdam from 1662 until his death (he added the cupola to van Campen's Town Hall), but he is better known as a portrait painter. He was indeed, Amsterdam's leading portraitist before being overtaken in popularity by Rembrandt in the 1630s. His life-size portraits look stiff compared with Rembrandt's and he is more attractive and original on a small scale. Constantin Huygens and His Clerk (National Gallery, London, 1627) is an excellent example of one of his small portraits of full-length figures in an interior, forerunners of the conversation pieces. His small equestrian portraits were also a new type ( Pieter Schout, Rijksmuseum, 1660).

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