BABUREN, THEODOOR DIRK van. - Dutch painter, perhaps born in Utrecht. There he was a pupil of Paulus Moreelse and after 1611 he spent some time in Rome. Around 1621 he returned to Holland, where he seems to have died young. He belonged to the circle of foreign followers of Caravaggio, along with Gerard Honthorst (Gherardo delle Notti), to whom he was very close, as well as Wouter Pietersz Crabeth, Hendrik Terbrugghen, Theodor Rombouts, and others.
His principal work is the decoration of the chapel of the Pietà in S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome, where all the paintings, including the one depicting the Dispute of Christ with the Doctors, are attributed to him, albeit with some uncertainty. Certainly his is the altarpiece of the Deposition, in which a similarity to Caravaggio’s painting of the same subject can be seen; here, however, Caravaggism loses its unity of plastic representation through the fragmentation of the luminous effect into many secondary highlights; the color, however, unlike the master’s, is bright and lively.
The other paintings in the same chapel—Christ Carrying the Cross, Christ Mocked, and the Agony in the Garden—are much weaker.
In Rome, B. also painted the Washing of the Feet, formerly in the Giustiniani Gallery and later transferred to the Wiesbaden Gallery; to the same period of his activity may also be assigned the Capture of Christ, attributed to Manfredi, and St. Roch, thought to be by Carracci, both in the Borghese Gallery, the Capture of Christ, formerly in the Gavotti collection, and Christ Among the Doctors in the Mansi Gallery in Lucca.
The works from the following period deal with subjects more common to Dutch painting and are no longer concerned with sacred art.