The Interior of The Nieuwe Kerk In Delft with the Tomb of William the Silent

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.