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Interior of the New Church at Delft, with the tomb of William the Silent
Hendrick (Cornelisz.) van VlietAbout 1667
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Liverpool, United Kingdom
Church interiors became a speciality of certain 17th-century Dutch painters. The subject gave scope both for the accurate recording of everyday reality and the representation of light, two principal concerns of the Dutch School. Vliet painted the interior of Delft’s New Church more than 20 times and produced several versions of this particular view. William I was the Dutch hero of the War of Independence from Spain and his tomb became a national shrine. It was often represented by artists. The newly-dug grave in the foreground introduces a note of sombre symbolism into what is otherwise a straightforward record of surface appearances.
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Details
- Title: Interior of the New Church at Delft, with the tomb of William the Silent
- Creator: Hendrick (Cornelisz.) van Vliet
- Creator Lifespan: 1611-12
- Creator Nationality: Dutch
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: Delft, the Netherlands
- Creator Birth Place: Delft, the Netherlands
- Date Created: About 1667
- tag / style: Church interior; Hendrick (Cornelisz.) van Vliet; Liverpool Mechanics Institution; New Church at Delft; Tomb of William the Silent; tomb; grave; church; perspective; architecture
- subject: The New Church at Delft, the Netherlands
- Physical Dimensions: w855 x h1270 cm (Without frame)
- Artwork History: The painting was, at one point in its history, in the collection of the Liverpool Mechanics Institution.
- Artist biographical information: Hendrick van Vliet followed in the footsteps of his uncle, the respected portraitist Willem van Vliet, by training in that genre. He joined the guild of St Luke in his native Delft in 1632. In the third quarter of the 17th century Delft was an influential centre of painting and in some respects the most innovative in the Netherlands. Around 1651/2 van Vliet started to paint the church interiors for which he is principally known. He was one of a handful of painters who began to extend the conventional mode of painting church interiors – looking along a nave or aisle to a central vanishing point – by creating more interesting effects of perspective through the use of two vanishing points and oblique views. Following the deaths of his rivals until his own demise in 1675, van Vliet enjoyed a virtual monopoly producing paintings of the two great churches in Delft.
- Additional artwork information: The Tomb of William I (of Orange, or ‘the Silent’) was begun in 1614 by Hendrick de Keyser and completed in 1622 by his son Pieter. There are four other versions of this composition by van Vliet. To learn more about this painting, please follow this link: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/17c/vliet.aspx To learn more about the Walker Art Gallery’s 17th-century collections, please follow this link: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/17c/
- Type: Oil on canvas
- Rights: Purchased in 1995 with the assistance of the Art Fund and a donation from the Wolfson Foundation
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