David Vinckboons

(Mechelen 1576–1632 Amsterdam)
Saint John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness,
signed lower right: David Vinck=Boons’‚ fe… 16..
oil on panel, 80 x 143 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Germany

The present painting is accompanied by a written certificate issued by Klaus Ertz (March 2018).

Ertz writes: ‘Having thoroughly examined the present painting, I am convinced that it is a well-conserved original by the Flemish painter David Vinckboons that was executed in Amsterdam around 1620. Six different versions of this subject taken from the Old Testament are known to me, four of which date from the period around 1610 and two of which were executed around 1620 (see K. Ertz, C. Nitze-Ertz, David Vinckboons, Lingen 2016, cat. nos. 41–46). Vinckboons’s wooded landscapes usually feature specific themes (such as a Christian one in the present example). In keeping with the artist’s preference for crowded compositions and movement, they are populated by large figures in the foreground while also containing “microstaffage” (enacting minor narratives in addition to the subject proper). The present composition is the only one known to me in which John the Baptist appears in an elevated place on the right-hand side; in all the other paintings, he is shown preaching on the left. In my opinion, due to its compositional layout with a sparsely grown forest and the view into the distance on the left and because of its painterly style, the present scene should also be dated to the period around 1620. It is an entirely typical phenomenon in seventeenth-century Flemish painting that an artist produced several different versions of a theme. As Vinckboons left behind a large group of signed and dated works, it is possible to also identify unsigned works and assign them to the artist in terms of style and chronology.’