Gerard Houckgeest

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The flat oak panel is cradled to conserve horizontal joins and cracks, there is unstable restoration along them. Areas of the painting, including the highlights are well preserved but other areas of the composition, such as the black paving slabs and the architectural background, have been augmented quite significantly. Fine details to the faces are well preserved and the removal of the very degraded and discoloured varnish would significantly improve the tonality. Offered in a gilt wood frame with some loss."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The majority of Houckgeest's representations of churches in the 1640s are imaginary. After 1650, probably on account of a major commission in that year to paint the Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft with the Tomb of William the Silent (1650, Hamburg, Kunsthalle), his output became somewhat limited to depictions of the interiors of the Nieuwe Kerk and Oude Kerk in Delft. Houckgeest's church interiors were to play an extremely important role in the formation of the two great painters of church interiors from the second half of the century, Emanuel De Witte and Hendrick van Vliet; his portraits of actual churches from the 1650s provided them with indispensible models, and his introduction of the striking effects of sunlight during these years was to have a particularly lasting effect on them.