(Antwerp 1590–1652 The Hague)
Interior of a catholic church with figures,
signed and dated, lower center: B. van Bassen / 1632,
oil on canvas, 112 x 141 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, 11 August 1985, lot 65 (according to an inscription on the reverse);
Private European collection

Bartholomeus van Bassen modified the depiction of architectural interiors in the Low Countries. Like many of his Antwerp contemporaries, he was highly influenced by Hendrijck van Steenwijck the Elder (1550–1603), but he employed new effects of light and atmosphere to articulate architectural space. Even though this church interior is imaginary, it revisits many details particular to the artist that are characteristic of his work, such as the depiction of balustrades, the height of the central vault, the figures seen from behind, the dogs at play and the chequered paving in the foreground.

Here the artist has created a composition wherein the delicate play of light and shade steeped in warm colour, generates a serene atmosphere. He has imagined a large architecture space in which the people promenade, the faithful and priests are depicted under magisterial coffered vaults – themes he had deployed with variants in the Renaissance Interior with Banqueters in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (inv. no. 98.3) and especially in the Interior of a Catholic Church now in The Mauritshuis, The Hague, dated 1626 (inv. no. 9).

Bartholomeus van Bassen was born at Antwerp in 1590 but little is known of his period of apprenticeship. He was admitted to the Delft Guild of Saint Luke in 1613. In 1624 he became a member of the Guild at The Hague where he was made deacon in 1638. For the exiled Winter king of Bohemia, Frederick V Palatine, he converted the monastery of Saint Agnes at Rhenen into a palace, built in the Italian manner. In 1638 he was nominated as the architect of Antwerp and among other things he took charge of the refurbishment of the municipal building and the construction of the Nieuwe Kerk. His paintings are all focused on the representation of architectural interiors, save a few portraits.