The Virgin and Child with the infant St John the Baptist

This large canvas is the work of Abraham Janssens, an important Antwerp history painter who left behind a fairly small but nonetheless varied and interesting oeuvre. Experts have dated this painting to around 1617/20. We know of no replicas or autograph variations of the work discussed here, which must be considered one of the highpoints in Janssens's oeuvre. On the basis of its large dimensions and the subject matter it seems safe to assume that the picture whose provenance remains a mystery must have originally been an altarpiece.