Interior of the Old Church at Delft

Emanuel de Witte painted figures early in his career, but went on to become one of the most important and accomplished seventeenth-century painters who depicted church interiors in Holland.

This luminous image in clear, cold colors of grays, whites, blues, and blacks is remarkable for the quality and intensity of the light shining into the large ecclesiastical interior. The capitals, gothic arches, and tracery, as well as height, give the interior a sense of majesty, even though, in conformity with Protestant iconoclasm, it is primarily devoid of other ornamentation, save a few escutcheons, or death shields, that served as "tombstones" of a sort. One gentleman studies the largest of these, an epitaph to a certain "Gerard Welhouc." The group of mother, baby, child, and dog, accompanied by a lowly ceramic jug to the right, add an air of homeliness to the grand composition, as do the gentleman and dog walking through the center. By their inclusion, the artist may have wanted to refer subtly to the cycle of life, as well as to the church's function as a meeting and resting place for all classes.