CORNELIS VAN HAARLEM
(b. 1562, Haarlem, d. 1638, Haarlem)

The Baptism of Christ

1588
Oil on canvas, 170 x 206 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

This is the earliest example of the 15 known versions of this subject by the artist.

In the 1580s, Cornelis van Haarlem, together with the poet, painter and art theorist, Karel van Mander, and the painter and engraver, Hendrick Goltzius, was one of the principal exponents of the Mannerist style which enjoyed a brief but intense flowering in Haarlem.