The Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam

c. 1660

Emanuel de Witte

Painter, Dutch, c. 1616 - 1691/1692

We stand in the central nave of a deeply shadowed church looking down toward the altar in this horizontal painting. Sunlight streams in from our right to bathe white pillars lining the nave with light, and it illuminates a wooden stall, like a private seating box, situated in front of the columns to our left. The forehead, eyes, and one hand of a young child peeks over the top edge of one of the panels, perhaps peering at us. Touches of pale red and yellow suggest stained glass over the dimly lit altar at the far end of the church, across from us. Gold chandeliers with curling, scrolling arms hang along the length of the nave, well below the dark, vaulted ceiling. About a dozen of men wearing black enter the church in a line from the left, near the altar. Closer to us, to our right, two men lean together in conversation with a dog nearby. One man gestures to a rectangular stone slab that has been lifted from the church floor to reveal dirt underneath, to our left. Two shovels, a broom, and a skull lay nearby. In front of the men, in the lower right corner of the canvas, a woman sits and nurses a swaddled infant. A young boy and another dog near the pair looks toward or at us. Two dogs stand in the shadows around the column closest to us on the left, and one raises its leg to relieve itself on the base.

Media Options

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Emanuel de Witte and Pieter Saenredam (1597–1665) are the most important seventeenth-century painters of church interiors, a significant genre in Dutch art. The two artists nevertheless approached their subjects in radically different ways. Saenredam had a scientific, almost archaeological interest in a building's structure, as seen in his Cathedral of Saint John at 's-Hertogenbosch (1961.9.33). De Witte, on the other hand, employed figures and contrasts of light and shadow to establish the mood and to emphasize the spiritual function of the church.

Most of De Witte’s churches can be identified as buildings that still dominate the cityscapes of Delft and Amsterdam, yet in his paintings he often combined architectural elements in imaginative and fanciful ways. The Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam is one of his most imposing works, not only because of its unusually large scale but also because of the impressive view it offers down the long nave. The painting is boldly executed, with dramatic light streaming across the composition. Numerous figures enliven the space, including a procession of soberly clad men who have entered the church at the far left to attend a funeral and the two gentlemen in the foreground who discuss the tomb from which the stone has just been lifted. In juxtaposition to the tomb, De Witte uses a beam of light to draw our attention to a mother nursing her child, thereby suggesting the cycle of life and death.

De Witte was born in Alkmaar but trained with the still-life painter Evert van Aelst (1602–1657) in Delft. He began his career as a painter of biblical and mythological subjects (mostly night scenes). Around 1650 he started to specialize in architectural paintings of Delft churches. In 1652 he moved to Amsterdam, where he specialized in church interiors, but also painted market scenes and portraits.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 47

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 80.5 x 100 cm (31 11/16 x 39 3/8 in.)
    framed: 122.6 x 141.1 x 7.3 cm (48 1/4 x 55 9/16 x 2 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    2004.127.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, c. 1660

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, Philippus van der Schley et al. at Arnoldus Dankmeyer & Son, Amsterdam, 14-15 August 1793, no. 215); Fouquet, Amsterdam; (sale, Philippus van der Schley et al. at Huis van Trip, Amsterdam, 7-8 May 1804, no. 194). E.W. Walker;[1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 10 April 1883, no. 123); Lesser.[2] John Femor-Hesketh, Towcaster, Northamptonshire. (Mortimer Brandt, New York), by 1951/1952 until at least 1963. (Noortman & Brod, New York), by 1981. Saul P. and Gayfryd Steinberg, New York; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 12 January 1996, no. 197); private collection, New York; purchased 17 November 2004 through (Gurr-Johns, London) by NGA.
[1] E.W. Walker is the vendor's name originally written under stock number 332R in Christie's daybook for the 1883 sale, but it is crossed out and "Miss Maples" is written above it, so it is not certain who the seller was. This information was kindly supplied by Marijke Booth of Christie's Archives Department (e-mail of 13 December 2005, in NGA curatorial files).
[2] The name of the buyer, originally given to the NGA as "Legge," was kindly corrected by Marijke Booth of Christie's Archives Department (e-mail of 8 December 2005, in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1981

  • Inaugural Exhibition of Fine Paintings and Drawings, Noortman & Brod, New York, 1981, no. 15, repro.

Bibliography

1753

  • Houbraken, Arnold. De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. in 1. (Facsimile edition, Amsterdam, 1976). The Hague, 1753: 1:283.

1963

  • Manke, Ilse. Emanuel de Witte, 1617-1692. Amsterdam, 1963: 93, no. 65, pl. 46.

1981

  • Noortman & Brod Ltd. Inaugural exhibition of fine paintings and drawings. Exh. cat. Noortman & Brod Ltd, New York, 1981: unpaginated, no. 15, repro.

1982

  • Liedtke, Walter A. Architectural painting in Delft: Gerard Houckgeest, Hendrick van Vliet, Emanuel de Witte. Doornspijk, 1982: 125-126, pl. IX.

1987

  • Lopez, Janet Ruth Gardner. "The Church Interiors of Emanuel de Witte." M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1987: 26-29, fig. 18.

  • Sontag, Susan. "The Pleasure of the Image." Art in America 75, no. 11 (November 1987): 126, repro. 127.

2005

  • "Gifts and Acquisitions." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 33 (Summer 2005): 18, repro.

  • Richard, Paul. "From the Collection. Washington's Prize Possessions." The Washington Post (July 17, 2005): N5, repro.

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Emanuel de Witte: 'The Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam.'" National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 33 (2005): 18, repro.

  • Masello, David. "100 Top Treasures." Art and Antiques 28, no. 11 (November 2005): 93, fig. 64.

Wikidata ID

Q20177509

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