Geertgen, tot Sint Jans (c. 1460–c. 1490)

Dutch painter. His name means ‘Little Gerard of (the Order of) St John’, but little is known about him. Of the few works firmly attributed to him, two best exhibit his characteristic charm and delicacy: The Nativity (National Gallery, London), a night scene lit solely by the radiance of the infant Jesus, and St John in the Wilderness (Staatliche Museum, Berlin), which shows a subtle mastery of landscape (both dated around the 1480s).