The Predication of the Baptist

Gaspard van den Hoecke worked in Rubens' studio sometime before 1622, and in 1635 contributed, together with a number of Antwerp artists, including his son, Jan van den Hoecke, to the decorative scheme designed to celebrate the entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand II into the city of Antwerp. Jan de Maere, to whom we are grateful, attributes the composition of Saint John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness to Gaspard, but notes that some of the staffage, including the group of the Apostles to the right of Saint John, and the faces of the group of figures in the foreground, shows the intervention of Jan, before his journey to Italy (1638-1644), when the influence of Rubens is still clearly visible.