Emanuel de witte biography definition

          Dutch painter, active in Alkmaar, then in Rotterdam (by ), Delft (by ), and Amsterdam (by )..

          WITTE, Emanuel de

          De Witte’s church interiors start to appear only late in his career. His first firmly dated picture in this genre originated in (Wallace Collection, London).

          Dutch painter ().

        1. Dutch painter.
        2. Dutch painter, active in Alkmaar, then in Rotterdam (by ), Delft (by ), and Amsterdam (by ).
        3. He moved to Delft, only an hour by barge from Rotterdam, in and joined the local Guild of Saint Luke where he studied with the still life painter Evert van.
        4. De Witte was born in Alkmaar but trained with the still-life painter Evert van Aelst (–) in Delft.

          5. His early work was influenced by the Delft painter Gerard Houckgeest (c), who also began to devote himself to the church interior late in life, namely in , having for many years painted imaginary topographical views.2

          The painting here under discussion depicts the interior of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

          The church, which still exists today, has a long and illustrious history. It was built as a hall church in the fourteenth century and expanded into a five-aisled basilica in the course of the sixteenth century to accommodate the growing congregation.

          De Witte must have been particularly fond of this attractive church: during his Amsterdam period he depicted it more than 30 times from a variety of viewpoints. These paintings clearly demonstrate that the painter regularly transformed reality as it suited the ne