Barent Fabritius, 'The Naming of Saint John the Baptist', probably 1650-5

Two women sit on a bed playing with a baby – one of them holds out an apple for the little boy to grasp in his chubby fingers. With an encouraging smile, the other points it out to him. The baby is Christ’s cousin, John. This is his naming day and he will grow up to be known as John the Baptist.

The old man sitting beside the bed writing on a tablet is Zachariah, the infant’s father. He and his wife Elisabeth were past child-bearing age, so when an angel prophesied John’s birth, Zachariah doubted its possibility and had his voice taken away as a punishment. On the naming day, the guests asked Elisabeth if the baby was to be named Zachariah after his father, as was the custom; Elisabeth answered that he would be called John. Surprised, they looked at Zachariah for confirmation. He wrote ‘His name is John’ and immediately recovered the power of speech (Luke 1: 63–64).

It’s not clear which of the figures is Elisabeth, but it’s a happy, comfortable group, the two women preoccupied with the child rather than the old man. The younger woman with the halo is thought to be the Virgin Mary, although the Bible says that she left Elisabeth’s house before John’s birth. Fabritius is playing a little with the story, perhaps to liken the holy family – Mary, Joseph and Christ – to ordinary Dutch families with a wide network of relatives, rather than the isolated figures of a religious icon.

Religious pictures were not used in the new Dutch Protestant churches, the walls of which were painted white and left unadorned, but small, narrative images of Bible stories were popular in homes. Artists sometimes showed their figures dressed in a fanciful idea of biblical costume – you can see Rembrandt’s imaginative take on this in Belshazzar’s Feast – but they also chose to show figures in contemporary dress, as Fabritius has done in this painting. The Gospel of Luke says that the baby John was only four days old on his naming day; Fabritius has shown him as almost a toddler, in the padded safety cap worn in the seventeenth-century Netherlands by children learning to walk.

Barent Fabritius was the brother of Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s most talented student. Carel died young when the Delft municipal gunpowder magazine exploded near his studio. He was already beginning to change from his master’s style, painting dark figures against lighter backgrounds. But Barent must have seen Rembrandt’s work and liked his use of deep shadow and soft, glowing light to achieve a warm, intimate atmosphere.