Artist: David Vinckboons
Date: 1610
Size: 27 x 43 cm
Technique: Oil On Panel
As usual, the preaching of John the Baptist is depicted in a woodland setting. The scene in the background on the right shows the baptism of Christ, with the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove above Christ. Vinckboons’s composition fits within a visual tradition shaped by the monumental Preaching of St John the Baptist of 1566 by Pieter Brueghel the Elder,1 which was largely popularized by the many copies of it produced by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.2 The woodland setting, the diversity of the listeners, and details like the figures in the trees were all influenced by Brueghel’s invention. The crowd is more modest in size in this relatively small painting by Vinckboons, and a more prominent role is given to the woodland, which is close to those by Gillis van Coninxloo. In another painting by Vinckboons of the same subject, the figures are made more subordinate to the landscape.3 Within Vinckboons’s oeuvre, The Preaching of St John the Baptist is closely related in style to his Fête Champêtre (SK-A-2109), and for that reason can be dated to the same period, probably around 1610. It has been suggested that the two paintings are companion pieces, with The Preaching supposedly proclaiming that even the merry sinners of The Fête Champêtre were capable of repentance.4 This, though, is very unlikely. In the first place, there are no other examples of such iconographically different pendants. Moreover, dendrochronological examination of both paintings has shown that the supports are from different trees, with The preaching being on a considerably older panel than the one used for The Fête Champêtre.5 The latter is also far more coarsely finished on the back, is 1.3 cm higher, and the two works have different provenances. Infrared reflectography shows that the position of the head of the Pharisee on the right differs from that in the underdrawing. Another version of John the Baptist preaching6 follows the painted surface of the Rijksmuseum picture, which must thus have been the first version. Yvette Bruijnen, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 314.
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