So closely is he associated with the brilliant group of French Caravaggists active in Rome in the early decades of the seventeenth century that Nicolas Régnier’s Flemish origins and early training in Antwerp are often forgotten. He was a pupil of Abraham Janssens, whose own work had already done much to disseminate the early influence of the Italian Baroque in the North, and whose pupils included some of the most important Flemish tenebrist painters. Régnier’s biographer and friend Joachim von Sandrart noted that upon his arrival in Rome, around 1615, he frequented the studio of Bartolomeo Manfredi, who was to be a continued influence on his style.
