Baroque Paintings

What is Baroque painting?

Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement, the European art movement that runs from about 1590 to 1750. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and the Catholic Revival, but important Baroque art and architecture also appeared in non-absolutist and Protestant states throughout Western Europe, and that spread is what makes the Baroque style so hard to reduce to one national school.

In this collection the period divides into two groups of pictures. From Italy and Spain, religious art made for churches and chapels: Christ on the cross, the Virgin, saints, angels, and biblical subjects such as Judith or the calling of Saint Matthew, staged in strong light against deep shadow. From the Protestant north, the Dutch Golden Age, where the same century produced portraits, cityscapes, still life and scenes of daily work for private houses rather than altars. Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer belong to that side; Caravaggio worked in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily. The 17th century holds most of the work either way.

Famous Baroque painting painters

Five painters carry most of the weight in any account of Baroque art, and each has a collection of their own here. Caravaggio is the one the period is usually explained through, so start there if you are choosing by name rather than by picture.

• Caravaggio: an Italian painter active in Rome for much of his artistic life, whose apprenticeship began in Milan in 1584 and whose final four years were spent moving between Naples, Malta and Sicily. Art critics describe his paintings as combining a realistic observation of the human state with dramatic light. 72 works here, including Judith Beheading Holofernes
• Peter Paul Rubens: the largest Baroque holding in the catalogue at 296 canvases, among them Christ on the Cross and The Vision of Saint Hubert
• Rembrandt van Rijn: a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman, generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art. His surviving work is estimated at about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings and several hundred drawings; 192 of the paintings are reproduced here
• Johannes Vermeer: a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life, and one of the greatest painters of the Dutch 17th century. He produced relatively few paintings and earned his living mainly as an art dealer, which is why 37 works cover most of what survives
• Diego Velazquez: 123 canvases from the Spanish court, including Las Meninas, the most searched of the Spanish works in this catalogue

Famous Baroque painting paintings

A short reading list from the collection, grouped the way the period itself divides. Each title links to the painting you can order.

Religious and history painting

This is the largest part of the collection, because it is the largest part of the century. Christ, the Virgin, the Holy Family, saints, angels and scenes from the Old Testament, painted for churches and chapels and lit from one side. Caravaggio set the terms for it, with figures at life size, one source of light, and no decoration around the scene, and the rest of Europe answered him. Saint John the Baptist, Saint Joseph, Saint Matthew and the Virgin recur through the whole group.

• The Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio, completed 1599 to 1600 for the Contarelli Chapel, showing the moment Jesus Christ calls the tax collector Matthew to follow him
• Judith Beheading Holofernes, Caravaggio, from the episode in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith that Renaissance and Baroque painters returned to again and again
• Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi, the same biblical subject in the hands of the best known woman painter of the Italian Baroque
• Christ on the Cross, Peter Paul Rubens
• The Vision of Saint Hubert, Peter Paul Rubens
• The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt, 1633, a history painting of the miracle in which Jesus calmed the storm, and his only known seascape
• The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt
• The Guardian Angel, Pietro da Cortona
• St. Joseph and the Infant Christ, Giovanni Battista Gaulli
• The Executioner with the Head of John the Baptist, William Dobson, the English answer to the same subject
• Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem, Sebastiano Conca
• The Madonna della Vallicella Adored by Seraphim and Cherubim, Peter Paul Rubens
• The Annunciation, Philippe de Champaigne
• The Prodigal Son, Salvator Rosa
• Human Fragility, Salvator Rosa

Portraits of the Baroque century

The 17th century is when the portrait stops being a record of rank and starts being a record of a face. Dutch sitters paid for their own likeness, Spanish and French ones were painted by appointment, and the two habits produced very different pictures. Caravaggio never painted a commissioned portrait, but the strong side light he made standard is what gives most of the faces below their shape: one large figure, a dark ground, and no scene around it.

• The Laughing Cavalier, Frans Hals, 1624, in the Wallace Collection in London, called by the art historian Seymour Slive one of the most brilliant of all Baroque portraits. The title was invented by the Victorian public and press
• The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, Rembrandt, 1632
• Girl with a Red Hat, Johannes Vermeer, 1665 to 1666
• Cardinal Richelieu, Philippe de Champaigne
• Portrait of a Philosopher, Salvator Rosa
• Portrait of the Artist's Wife Lucrezia, Salvator Rosa
• A philosopher in his study, Salomon Koninck
• The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer, 1665
• Young Woman with a Pearl Necklace, Johannes Vermeer
• Girl with a Flute, Johannes Vermeer

Landscape, still life and daily life

The other half of the Baroque century, and the half that reads best on a wall at home: a street, a kitchen, a bird on a perch, fruit on a table. Vermeer painted almost nothing else, and the Dutch market for small pictures is the reason so many of them survive.

• The Little Street, Johannes Vermeer, about 1657 to 1658, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and signed below the window in the lower left corner
• View of Delft, Johannes Vermeer, about 1659 to 1661, his only cityscape and one of three known paintings of his hometown
• The Goldfinch, Carel Fabritius, signed and dated 1654, a life-sized chained European goldfinch painted as a trompe l'oeil on panel, 33.5 by 22.8 centimetres, in the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1896
• The Silver Tureen, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, a still life from the generation that followed
• Still-life of Fruit and Birds, Tobias Stranover
• Evening Landscape, Salvator Rosa
• View of the Gulf of Salerno, Salvator Rosa
• Diogenes Casting Away His Cup, Salvator Rosa
• Parkland Setting with Birds, Tobias Stranover, the most viewed painting in this collection
• A Monkey, a Dog and Various Birds in a Landscape, Tobias Stranover, the best selling painting in this collection
• The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
• The Geographer, Johannes Vermeer, 1668 to 1669
• Woman Holding a Balance, Johannes Vermeer
• The Lacemaker, Johannes Vermeer
• The Art of Painting, Johannes Vermeer
• The Ray, or The Kitchen Interior, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin
• The Buffet, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin
• Pythagoras and the Fisherman, Salvator Rosa

The schools around them

Beyond the five names above, the Baroque century runs through a dozen more collections here. In Spain, Bartolome Esteban Murillo with 109 works, Francisco de Zurbaran with 56 and Jusepe de Ribera with 80. In Flanders, Anthony van Dyck with 149. In Italy, Guido Reni with 94 and Annibale Carracci with 50. In France, Georges de la Tour with 58, Claude Lorrain with 77 and Nicolas Poussin with 115. In the Dutch Republic, Jan Steen with 91 and Pieter de Hooch with 46.

• The Concert, Johannes Vermeer
• The Astronomer, Johannes Vermeer
• A Lady Writing, Johannes Vermeer
• The Music Lesson, Johannes Vermeer
• Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Johannes Vermeer
• The Procuress, Johannes Vermeer
• A Lady Seated at a Virginal, Johannes Vermeer
• Young Woman Playing a Guitar, Johannes Vermeer

Related styles

High Renaissance paintings come before the Baroque and supply the classical models it works from. Rococo art reproductions come after it, and are often regarded as the final expression of the same movement. Northern Renaissance oil paintings are the Dutch and Flemish tradition the Golden Age painters inherited.

Frequently asked questions

What years does Baroque painting cover?

About 1590 to 1750. Renaissance art comes before it, and the Rococo, often regarded as the final expression of the same movement and sometimes called Late Baroque, comes after. The Dutch Golden Age falls inside it, in the 17th century, which is where most of the work here sits. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and the Catholic Revival, but Baroque art appeared in Protestant and non-absolutist states as well, which is why a Dutch still life and a Roman altarpiece sit side by side.

Which Baroque painting is the best known?

Caravaggio's The Calling of Saint Matthew and Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp are the two most viewed here. Velazquez's Las Meninas draws the most searches of the Spanish works in this catalogue, and Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring is the Dutch picture people ask for by name. If you want the one nobody else on your street will have, the Salvator Rosa portraits and the Tobias Stranover bird pieces are the quiet end of the same century.

Are these Baroque paintings printed or painted?

Painted. An artist reproduces each one in oil on canvas by hand, at the width you choose, in any of seven sizes. Before it leaves the studio we photograph the finished painting and send it to you for approval. The canvas can arrive rolled in a tube, stretched as a gallery wrap, or with an optional frame, shipping is free worldwide, and returns stay open for 90 days. Prints, giclees and canvas transfers are a different product, and not one we sell.