Dirck van Baburen was a leading member of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, a group of Dutch artists who moved from Utrecht to Rome in the early seventeenth century, and upon their return, introduced the dramatic chiaroscuro and intense realism of Caravaggio to the northern Netherlands. Fewer than forty autograph works are known by Baburen, whose untimely death at the age of thirty brought an abrupt end to his career. In 1612-13, the nineteen-year-old Baburen left the studio of Paulus Moreelse for Italy and spent most of his time there in Rome.
Following the death of Caravaggio in 1610, the decade of Baburen’s arrival in the Eternal City witnessed the pinnacle of the Caravaggesque movement in Rome, owing to the popularity of his novel style, both among patrons and the influx of talented artists who practiced it. With few exceptions, most of the dozen or so works dated from Baburen’s prized Roman period consist of religious subjects.
