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| Gerrit van Honthorst Samson and Delilah ca. 1615 oil on canvas Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Childhood of Christ ca. 1620 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Christ before Caiaphas ca. 1617 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Solder with Young Woman ca. 1621 oil on canvas Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig |
"Gerrit van Honthorst's night paintings created such a sensation in Rome that he was known as Gherardo delle Notti. An Utrecht native and son of a painter of tapestry cartoons, Honthorst's reputation was made with these nocturnal pictures, usually religious subjects. A single candle served as the light source whose rays were shielded by the figures. The lighting was derived from Caravaggio's works, and Honthorst's role in bringing knowledge of Caravaggio and his followers to the North was critical; many painters, including Rembrandt van Rijn and Georges de la Tour, were influenced by Honthorst's Caravaggesque pictures. After nearly ten years in Rome, Honthorst settled in Utrecht in 1620, where he soon abandoned his Caravaggesque manner and adopted a much lighter palette. In 1628 he was called to England to paint the royal family. There he began his second court style, painting portraits in the manner of Anthony van Dyck. Honthorst spent the rest of his career as court painter at The Hague, where he largely devoted himself to portraits, becoming one of the few seventeenth-century Dutch artists to earn an international reputation."
– from biographical sketch by curators at the Getty Museum
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Adoration of the Shepherds 1622 oil on canvas Pomeranian State Museum (Germany) |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Christ crowned with Thorns ca. 1622 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst St Sebastian ca. 1623 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst The Concert 1623 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Musical Group on a Balcony 1622 oil on panel Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"In his early period, Honthorst appears as a painter striving to emulate Bartolomeo Manfredi and Valentin de Boulogne. The powerful realism characteristic of his later period seems to have been for the most part concealed under a cloak of monumental painting while he was in Rome. . . . Honthorst's composition and his draftsmanship are correct, simple in their linearity, and unmannered, but lacking in terseness and expressive power. There is also a rather polished and impersonal quality to his brushwork. In his later works his palette brightens considerably; in respect to style and subject matter, he distanced himself from his Italianate beginnings once he returned to Holland."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Satyr and Nymph 1623 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Concert on a Balcony 1624 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst The Procuress 1625 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Granida and Daifilo 1625 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst The Concert ca. 1626-30 oil on canvas Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| Gerrit van Honthorst Portrait of a Gentleman 1631 oil on canvas private collection |