Lot 213: Gerard Houckgeest , Possibly The Hague 1600 - 1661 Bergen op Zoom A church interior with figures praying by a chapel in the foreground oil on panel

signed and dated lower right: G.Houckgeest.f.1645 oil on panel

measurements note 74 by 97.5 cm.; 29 1/8 by 38 3/8 in.

THE PROPERTY OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, REMOVED FROM BADMINTON HOUSE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
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.