Gerard van Houckgeest

A gothic church interior

Initially Houckgeest painted mainly fantasy architecture. This changed however around 1650 when he began to paint existing buildings. Like his colleague, Emanuel de Witte he was a very talented painter of church interiors. The present painting has an interesting history: before WWII it belonged to the dealer Jacques Goudstikker and was looted by the Nazi authorities in July 1940. It was recovered by the Allies in 1945 and handed into the custody of the Dutch Government. The work was finally restituted in February 2006 to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker.