Jan van der Heyden, 'A Square before a Church', 1678
About the work
Overview
Jan van der Heyden clearly enjoyed the discipline of painting very fine details. Although this is a very small picture, he has delineated many of the leaves of the trees individually. If you look closely at the grey roof of the church, you can see that he has used incredibly fine lines of black paint to suggest the patterns made by the tiles.
But he also seems to have enjoyed the challenge of depicting entirely imaginary buildings and townscapes and making them seem real. This picture is almost certainly an example of his inventive streak – a fantasy composed of elements of different buildings that he had seen during his travels in Germany and Holland. The architecture of the church is typical of the mid-sixteenth-century Gothic of northern Germany. The simpler brick building on the left is more Dutch in character.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- A Square before a Church
- Artist
- Jan van der Heyden
- Artist dates
- 1637 - 1712
- Date made
- 1678
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 21.8 × 28.9 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed; Dated
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Sir James Morse Carmichael, Bt, 1902
- Inventory number
- NG1915
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
-
1960Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
-
1991Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.