St John the Baptist Preaching

For most of the 20th century this panel was in the American Midwest. A Chicago collector, Albert Goodrich, gave it in 1924 to James Griffin on his appointment as Bishop of Springfield, Illinois. The bishop left his entire estate to the diocese in 1948, the diocese lent the painting to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998, and in 2018 the Friends of the Mauritshuis bought it and brought it to The Hague. Lastman painted it in Amsterdam in 1627 and signed it at the lower left. John the Baptist stands with his arms spread wide, announcing the coming of the Messiah to a mixed crowd that hangs on every word. On the boulder at the left, one of the boys signals to his friends to be quiet. Lastman put the figures in front in full sunlight and the middle of the crowd in shade, and that is how a group this tightly packed still reads in depth.