Jacob Adriaensz Backer was born in Harlingen and trained as an artist for Lambert Jacobsz in Leeuwarden. He concentrated on portraits and studies of heads, more seldom on figure scenes such as this one. Backer was never a pupil of Rembrandt, but he was influenced by Rembrandt’s portraits and history painting after he came to Amsterdam in 1633.
The Four Evangelists is an early work in the artist’s production. The evangelists appear as ordinary people or monks rather than saintly figures. They are sitting at a table with their respective attributes: Matthew’s angel behind Matthew, John’s eagle in the upper right-hand corner, Luke’s ox to the right, and Mark’s lion on the lower left-hand side. The subject matter possibly appealed to the Mennonites, the Protestant religious sect that Backer and his master belonged to.
