Anthonie De Lorme (Doornik 1620-1673/6 Rotterdam) The interior of the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam, with the tomb of Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With signed and dated 'A. de. Lorme. 1667' (lower left, on the step) oil on canvas 45¾ x 40 1/8 in. (116.2 x 101.9 cm.)
(Possibly) John Bourchier the Younger (1710-1759) and by descent at Micklegate House, York, where recorded in a watercolour of circa 1830 by Mary Ellen Best (York City Art Gallery, inv. no. R2394). Thought to have been acquired by the family of the present owner in the mid-nineteenth century.
Notes
THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Hitherto unrecorded, this beautifully preserved canvas counts as one of the artist's most accomplished and striking pictures. Once described as 'Admiral van Tromp's tomb in the church at Antwerp' (old label on the reverse), the painting's main subject is the tomb of Vice-Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With (1599-1658) in the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam. Carved by Pieter Rijcks after a design by Jacob Lois (1620-1676), the monument shows De With reclining beneath figures of Neptune and Mars set within red marble columns surmounted by allegorical representations of fame and victory. His graveboard and flag, both bearing his coat-of-arms, are affixed to the wall above the monument. There can be little doubt that the main inspiration for the design was Jacob van Campen's monument of De With's lifelong rival Admiral Maarten Tromp, completed in 1658 for the Oude Kerk in Delft, and with which, as mentioned above, the monument in the present work was once confused.
De With rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral in 1637 and served under Tromp at the Battle of the Downs (1639) and again during the First Anglo-Dutch War. He actually commanded the Dutch fleet against the English at the Battle of the Kentish Knock (1652), but lost and was consquently overlooked as Tromp's successor after the latter's death in 1653. De With was an excellent sailor and unstintingly brave but his career was blighted by his outspoken and divisive nature - shunned by his equals and insubordinate to his superiors, he gained as many enemies as friends. He died in the Battle of the Sound on 8 November 1658, commanding the vanguard of the Dutch fleet in the relief of Copenhagen from the Swedish. His ship the Brederode became grounded and was surrounded by the enemy. He was first shot through the left thigh by a musket ball and then hours later in the chest. When his ship was boarded by the Swedes, he refused to surrender his sword uttering the immortal lines 'I have faithfully wielded this sword so many years for Holland, that I won't give it up now to some common soldiers'. Barely able to stand, he insisted on walking unaided across a gangplank to the Swedish ship where he promptly collapsed and died. His body was enbalmed at the order of king Charles X and displayed as a war trophy in the town hall of Elsinore. The body was handed over to the Danish court in Copenhagen the following January and then transported back to the Netherlands where De With was buried at the Laurenskerk on 7 October 1659.
Anthonie De Lorme established his reputation as a painter of imaginary, often candlelit, interiors inspired by his teacher Jan van Vucht and by Bartolomeus van Bassen. In around 1652 he turned his attention to the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam and accurate views of the church interior account for virtually all of his subsequent output. In 1663 the French nobleman Balthasar de Monconys visited De Lorme's studio and noted that the artist's work consisted of nothing but 'L'eglise de Rotterdam en diverses veues, mais il les fait bien' (quoted by Walter Liedtke, catalogue of the exhibition, Vermeer and the Delft school, New York, 2001, p. 308, under no. 41). Jantzen listed thirteen such views, to which the present work is a major addition (H. Jantzen, Das Niederländische Architekturbild, revised edition, Brunswick, 1979, pp. 226-7).
De Lorme's new interest in direct observation was inspired by the painters working nearby in Delft, although in terms of style and composition De Lorme evolved his own personal manner. As noted by Liedtke, the pictorial possibilities within the Laurenskerk were very different to the Delft churches being more spacious with larger windows and offering less scope for diagonal views through its columns (W. Liedtke, Architectural Painting in Delft, Doornspijk, 1982, p. 69). De Lorme may well have been aware of Hendrick van Vliet's 1658 Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft, with the tomb of Admiral Tromp (Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art; see fig. 1) when conceiving the present work. A huddle of spectators stand before the tomb in the same way but De Lorme adopts a frontal perspective that emphasises the height of the building and the effects of light falling through the south windows in a manner more closely reminiscent of Saenredam. De Lorme's evocation of the spirit of Saenredam is also remarked on by Liedtke who notes that 'in later works by De Lorme ... the layered, rectilinear design that results are as reminiscent of Saenredam as one could expect De Lorme and the Laurenskerk to be' (loc. cit., p. 71).
The figures in costume that stand before De With's tomb may allude to his campaigns as a naval commander, so the man on the right in nordic dress, of the type sometimes seen in works by Avercamp, may refer to his attempt to liberate Copenhagen from the Swedes which cost him his life. Similarly, the man in oriental dress might represent his activity further afield, notably in Brazil where he fought against the Portugese in 1647. At the far end of the church an open door allows a glimpse into the sunlit street beyond. De Lorme takes care to render not just the play of dappled light on the walls but also signs of wear such as some decaying plaster, cracks and chips that suggest the passage of time and resistance to mortality. The dog in the lower right corner is a device that features in several Delft interiors and was meant, again according to Liedtke, to signify that the mundane, even in the physical form of the church, is to be scorned in comparison with the spiritual world that the church represents.
