VLIET, Hendrick Cornelisz. Van

In the 1650s Van Vliet painted oblique views of the interiors of the Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, exploring numerous possibilities within those complex spaces. Deep, orthogonal views, as in this painting from 1662, were one of Van Vliet’s more remarkable inventions within the development of architectural painting in Delft.

The painting is signed and dated lower right: H. Van. Vliet./A° 1662.

This canvas was commissioned by Paulus Teding van Berkhout, the eldest son of Adriaen Teding van Berkhout (1571-1620), whose memorial tablet appears on the right. The central tombstone in the foreground covers Adriaen Teding van Berkhout’s grave.

In the early 1660s Van Vliet returned to the venerable tradition of deep, one-point perspective views, of which there are numerous earlier examples by Bartholomeus van Bassen, Gerard Houckgeest, Pieter Saenredam, Anthonie de Lorme and others.

The painting is signed and dated on the base of the right column: H. VAN. VLIET.A° 1661.

The painting presents a view of the Oude Kerk from the south aisle looking northeast. This kind of diagonal arrangement was first employed by Gerard Houckgeest in 1650-51. Van Vliet adopted this scheme, but not Houckgeest careful fidelity to specific views in the Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. In the present painting, for example, the proportions of the architecture vary somewhat from those found at the site.

This drawing represents a view westward from the crossing in the Oude Kerk. It is squared for transfer to another surface, presumably a prepared panel or canvas. The attribution to Van Vliet is not certain.

This deep perspective view looking down the central aisle of the Oude Kerk in Delft, was a departure by Van Vliet from the oblique views of church interiors that had dominated his work in the 1650s. Van Vliet painted a pendant to this picture depicting a similar view of the central aisle of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft (private collection).

The painting is signed and dated at the back of the pew lower right: H. Van Vliet/An. 1662.

Van Vliet, a prolific Delft painter, carried on the Houckgeest-de Witte tradition in painting church interiors. He was first active as a portraitist and turned to painting church interiors in 1652.

Using a diagonal construction van Vliet’s interior of the Old Church at Delft offers a report on a significant new addition to the venerable church. It includes a full-view of the elaborate monument dedicated to Admiral Maerten Tromp which was unveiled in 1658, the year the picture is dated.

Not many people in front of the tomb had to be reminded that Tromp, whose most glorious victory was the defeat of the Spanish with a Dutch fleet much inferior in strength at the Battle of the Downs in 1639, was killed in the furious Battle of Scheveningen five years before the monument was dedicated. Most of them also knew that the tomb that can be glimpsed deep in the church’s choir belongs to Admiral Piet Hein whose capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628 made him a national hero particularly adored by the shareholders of the Dutch West Indies Company who, thanks to his prize, received a fifty per cent dividend on their shares that year; his coup also filled the treasury of the northern Netherlands and enabled Frederik Hendrick to lay siege and subdue ’s-Hertogenbosch, a Spanish stronghold in the south, with nearly 30,000 men.

The modest slab-less tomb on the church’s floor and the gravedigger who has paused to chat with a visitor, both familiar details in church interiors of the period, are reminders of the transience of more ordinary mortals. His painting includes children and dogs; well and less well-trained children and dogs are not infrequent accessories in these paintings.

This panel is one of the artist’s earliest and most experimental works as an architectural painter. At this point in his career, about 1652-53, he had been a portraitist for approximately twenty years and had just begun to depict views of actual church interiors under the influence of Gerard Houckgeest.

Hendrick van Vliet, the nephew and pupil of Willem van Vliet, is best known for his many interior views of actual churches in Delft and other cities, which he began to paint in the early 1650s. Before 1650 he was a moderately successful portraitist and an occasional painter of history pictures. This family portrait, which came to light only in 1986, is Van Vliet’s finest work in this genre.

The sitters were recently identified as members of a distinguished Catholic family: Michiel van der Dussen (1600-1681), his wife Wilhelmina van Setten (1605-1683) and their children.

The artist was influenced by the portraits of Michiel van Mierevelt. This painting is signed, dated and inscribed with the age of the sitter (65) lower left.

This drawing is on one of the nineteen leaves of blue paper in a sketchbook of preparatory material. The leaves have drawings on both sides, a total of thirty-eight sketches in black and white chalk, with red chalk as well on four of the sketches. While the great majority of the images are portraits, there are also three sketches of church interiors, a drawing of a pulpit, and one of a grave board. Finally, four sides are devoted to studies of staffage, or figures, like those Van Vliet placed within church interiors in his paintings. Unfortunately, the sketchbook is not in its original binding, nor is the sequence of pages original.

This drawing is on one of the nineteen leaves of blue paper in a sketchbook of preparatory material. The leaves have drawings on both sides, a total of thirty-eight sketches in black and white chalk, with red chalk as well on four of the sketches. While the great majority of the images are portraits, there are also three sketches of church interiors, a drawing of a pulpit, and one of a grave board. Finally, four sides are devoted to studies of staffage, or figures, like those Van Vliet placed within church interiors in his paintings. Unfortunately, the sketchbook is not in its original binding, nor is the sequence of pages original.

This drawing is on one of the nineteen leaves of blue paper in a sketchbook of preparatory material. The leaves have drawings on both sides, a total of thirty-eight sketches in black and white chalk, with red chalk as well on four of the sketches. While the great majority of the images are portraits, there are also three sketches of church interiors, a drawing of a pulpit, and one of a grave board. Finally, four sides are devoted to studies of staffage, or figures, like those Van Vliet placed within church interiors in his paintings. Unfortunately, the sketchbook is not in its original binding, nor is the sequence of pages original.

This drawing is on one of the nineteen leaves of blue paper in a sketchbook of preparatory material. The leaves have drawings on both sides, a total of thirty-eight sketches in black and white chalk, with red chalk as well on four of the sketches. While the great majority of the images are portraits, there are also three sketches of church interiors, a drawing of a pulpit, and one of a grave board. Finally, four sides are devoted to studies of staffage, or figures, like those Van Vliet placed within church interiors in his paintings. Unfortunately, the sketchbook is not in its original binding, nor is the sequence of pages original.

This is a characteristic example of Van Vliet’s depictions of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft in the 1660s. The funerary monument to Willem I (‘the Silent’ ), Stadholder and Prince of Orange (1533-1584), was commissioned by the States General in 1614, and was designed and largely executed by the Amsterdam architect and sculptor Hendrick de Keyser the Elder before being completed by his son Pieter in 1622-3. It was erected in the choir of the Nieuwe Kerk and became a national shrine, regarded both as a national mounument to the New Republic and a symbol of liberty and independence.

The painting is signed and dated lower right: H. van vliet/ Ao 1665.

In their sheer abundance and variety, Van Vliet’s paintings of church interiors create the impression of a commercial enterprise. This was nothing new in the world of Dutch art but it was new to the genre in Delft. Van Vliet’s production was consistent and systematic. His constant search for new views in the churches of Delft, his trips to other towns and his use of standard schemes indicate work for the open market.

The paintings shows a view of the interior in the Pieterskerk in Leiden from the northern transept to the southwest. This is the earliest known dated architectural painting by Van Vliet. It employs Houckgeest’s type of oblique perspective scheme, and an illusionistic archway and curtain.