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Jan van der Heyden, 'An Architectural Fantasy', probably 1665-70

About the work

Jan van der Heyden had an outstanding ability to make buildings seem almost photographically real (at least, that’s how we might describe it today). He worked with extraordinary delicacy and precision, taking the trouble to delineate and shade the finest details of stone and brickwork and the play of light on every tile. Look at the effects of weathering and the patched up repairs on the gable end of the building in the centre.

Despite being painted in such a realistic way, this scene is almost certainly not real. As the title suggests, it’s an architectural fantasy composed of elements of different buildings which the artist had probably visited in Germany and Holland. Van der Heyden painted several such scenes – they were probably appreciated for their exoticism and the way they evoked a sense of an ideal city once great, now ruined.

Key facts

Full title
An Architectural Fantasy
Artist
Jan van der Heyden
Artist dates
1637 - 1712
Date made
probably 1665-70
Medium and support
oil on wood
Dimensions
51.8 × 64.5 cm
Inscription summary
Signed
Acquisition credit
Wynn Ellis Bequest, 1876
Inventory number
NG992
Location
Not on display
Collection
Main Collection
Previous owners

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.

More works by Jan van der Heyden

A Farm among Trees
A Farm among Trees
Jan van der Heyden
There is something rather mysterious about this rare – and tiny – landscape by Jan van der Heyden, who specialised in painting urban scenes in a highly precise and realistic way. In this picture he has, instead, thrown a sort of veil over the buildings, a screen of trees which obscures our view.T...
Room 16
A Square before a Church
A Square before a Church
Jan van der Heyden
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 p...
Not on display
A View in Cologne
A View in Cologne
Jan van der Heyden
This is one of at least four versions that Jan van der Heyden made of this scene of Cologne and its half-built medieval cathedral. It is an alluring view. He has captured the lengthy shadows and raking light of a bright morning in a city street populated with people from all walks of life.Most of...
Not on display
An Imaginary View of Nijenrode Castle
An Imaginary View of Nijenrode Castle
Jan van der Heyden
Although he liked to paint scenes that looked highly realistic, Jan van der Heyden made adjustments to what he saw, and often created entirely imaginary scenes. Sometimes he would compose fantasy buildings, combining elements from more than one structure. Here his approach is slightly different....
Not on display
The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague
The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague
Jan van der Heyden
This is a view of the south-east front of the Huis ten Bosch (‘House in the Wood’), which was built just outside The Hague as a summer palace for the wife of the head of state of the Netherlands. The building is shown in its original state, a decade or so after it was finished. Today it is used b...
Room 16
View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam
View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam
Jan van der Heyden
This is one of the best seventeenth-century examples of what today we might think of as a high-resolution image. The detail and brushwork are so fine that no matter how closely you look at, or zoom in on, the picture, it never quite seems to pixelate. Yet the painter has made a very strange mista...
Room 16