Interior of the Oude Kerk in Delft, with the Tomb of Vice-Admiral Pieter Pietersz Heijn, Gerard Houckgeest (attributed to), c. 1650 – (Gerard Houckgeest) ◄ Trước Kế tiếp ►

Nghệ sĩ: Gerard Houckgeest

ngày: 1650

kích thước: 68 x 57 cm

Kỹ thuật: Oil On Canvas

This is a view of the interior of the Oude Kerk in Delft seen from St George’s Chapel, with the tomb of Vice-Admiral Pieter Pietersz Heijn (1577-1629) – popularly known as Piet Hein – in the left background surmounted by the Spanish flags he captured. This marble monument, which is attributed to Pieter de Keyser, was completed in 1638, nine years after the naval hero’s death.4 A mason is making an inscription to the left of the central column,5 while to the right of it a gravedigger is talking to a man dressed in black.6 The composition is related to the church interiors made by the trio of Gerard Houckgeest, Emanuel de Witte and Hendrick van Vliet in the early 1650s. The painting is not signed or dated.7 The work was auctioned as a Van Vliet in 1902,8 but eight years later Jantzen gave it to Houckgeest on the evidence of a signed picture of 1650 in Hamburg.9 The museum initially accepted that attribution,10 but reverted to Van Vliet in 1934.11 Wheelock and Liedtke have defended the assignment to Houckgeest since the 1970s.12 Assessment of this Interior of the Oude Kerk in Delft is complicated a little by its poor condition,13 but the similarities to Houckgeest’s work are clear enough for it to be attributed to him. In addition to the resemblance to the signed 1650 Hamburg painting, it displays the stylistic features familiar from the artist’s remaining oeuvre, such as the close attention to the fall of light and shaded passages, and the care lavished on the capitals and other architectural details.14 The fairly accurate depiction of the construction also points towards Houckgeest, whose church interiors are more faithful to reality than Van Vliet’s.15 The canvas is dated around 1650 on the basis of its similarity with the painting in Hamburg,16 which not only makes it one of the earliest of Houckgeest’s realistic church scenes but also the earliest view of Pieter Pietersz Heijn’s tomb.17 Brussels has a second version of the Amsterdam painting.18 That work, which is widely regarded as a copy of the one in the Rijksmuseum, is attributed to various artists in the literature.19 Gerdien Wuestman, 2022 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements