Jan van Bijlert (Utrecht, 1597/1598 - 1671) Saint... Lot 1142

Jan van Bijlert (Utrecht, 1597/1598 - 1671) Saint Luke Oil on canvas, 79X64 cm Jan Harmensz van Bijlert trained at the family workshop until 1616, then continued his apprenticeship with Abraham Bloemaert. The earliest known painting of his production is a St. Sebastian cured by St. Irene, executed in 1624, when the painter was back home after his Roman sojourn documented from the first half of 1620. We do not possess works referable to this period, but it is logical to guess that his style was aligned with the Caravaggesque taste of the Capitoline bent, a taste particularly influenced, for example, by Terbrugghen (also a pupil of Bloemaert), Baburen and Gerrit Van Honthorst, as we can easily understand by observing the canvas under consideration. We find a similar pictorial and compositional temperament in the St. Luke and St. John the Evangelist published by Huys Janssen and which rank among his earliest catalog works (see p. 230, nos. 7-8). We thank Tommaso Borgogelli for the attribution. Reference bibliography: B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, Oxford, Turin 1989, ad vocem P. Huys Janssen, Jan Van Bijlert. Catalogue raisonné, Amsterdam-Philadelphia 1998, ad vocem