The Preaching of St John the Baptist

1634 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

religious

Breenbergh made contact with Lastman straightaway after his return to Amsterdam from Rome. That he was impressed by Lastman's paintings can be seen in the distinct Lastmanian character of the crowd of figures in his The Preaching of St John the Baptist. But his own contribution to the painting of the religious subject (one of the most popular in seventeenth-century Holland, probably because of the importance the Dutch placed on preaching the word of the Gospel) is new, and more significant.

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About the Artist

Bartholomeus Breenbergh

1598 – 1657

Dutch painter, with Poelenburgh the leading pioneer of the taste for Italianate landscapes in the Netherlands. Breenbergh spent most of the 1620s in Italy and thereafter worked in Amsterdam. His style as a painter is very similar to Poelenburgh's, his biblical and mythological characters set in well-balanced views of the Roman Campagna, often complete with classical ruins. His drawings are much fresher and bolder, and have often passed under the name of Claude, as is the case with two examples in Christ Church, Oxford. Late in his career Breenbergh turned to figure painting.

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