Lot 139: JOB ADRIAENSZ. BERCKHEYDE HAARLEM 1630 - 1693

THE PROPERTY OF DAVID KOETSER GALLERY

THE INTERIOR OF THE ST. BAVOKERK, HAARLEM, LOOKING SOUTH-WEST TOWARDS THE CHOIR SCREEN

measurements note
17 1/2 by 14 1/2 in.; 44.5 by 39 cm.

signed and dated on the wall on the right J. Berckheyde fecit / 1666

oil on panel

PROVENANCE

With P. de Boer, Amsterdam;
Dr. A. T. Thurstrup, Djursholm, Sweden, 1951;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, April 25, 2001, lot 20, to David Koetser Gallery.

EXHIBITED

Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Hollandska Mastare, 1967, no. 12.

LITERATURE

W.A. Liedtke, Architectural Painting in Delft, Groningen 1982, p. 74, note 67.

NOTE

This interior is a rare example in the oeuvre of Haarlem-born artist Job Berckheyde, who, along with his brother Gerrit, was best known for his townscapes.
Walter Liedtke explains, in his seminal book, Architectural Painting in Delft, (see Literature) that this composition "depends directly on Saenredam, but the frontal projection that Saenredam used to realign obliquely receding elevations is abandoned by Job in favor of two-point projection that goes back in turn to a direct encounter with the architecture. Thus a Haarlem artist whose greatest debt was to Saenredam emphatically revised his kind of composition in response to the Delft approach. The result is as true to a real experience as the early drawings of the older master."
It is also very interesting to note that Job's brother Gerrit painted a view of the exterior of the same church in the same year, which is currently on loan at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., from a private collection.