Interior of the St Bavokerk in Haarlem, Seen from the South Ambulatory, Looking across the Choir to the North Ambulatory and the Large Organ

Entry

Gothic St Bavo’s in Haarlem is the church that Saenredam depicted most often, there being at least 12 views of its interior produced between 1628, the year on his earliest dated painting, and 1660.⁵ Like the one discussed here, six of these paintings are from the period 1635-37.

Saenredam followed his usual procedure for this picture, first making a site sketch which he then worked up into a detailed construction drawing. He blackened the back of the latter so that he could transfer the lines onto the white ground of the panel by indenting them. The sketch on blue paper for this painting dated 30 August 1635 still survives (fig. a), as has the lower half of the construction drawing of three months later (fig. b).⁶ According to an annotation on that sheet, the painted version was completed on 15 April 1636.

The view is towards the north ambulatory and the so-called Christmas Chapel.⁷ One innovation is the way in which the artist used the two large columns and a lancet arch as a framing device for the central scene.⁸ Prominence is given to the two organs. In the background is the small organ built in 1594 by Peter Jansz de Swart of Utrecht,⁹ but the main focus is on the large organ on the left, which the artist subtly draws added attention to with the gaze of the standing man with a sword at his side. Saenredam raised the crown of the arch slightly in order to provide the best possible view of the organ.¹⁰ He also applied gold and silver leaf to add lustre to the metal parts of the instrument, which was highly unusual in 17th-century Dutch painting.¹¹

The large organ, which remained in use until the 18th century, was made in 1463 by the Utrecht organ builder Pieter Gerritsz. Its shutters were painted by Vrederick Hoon in 1465. The Rijksmuseum painting shows that the right shutter was decorated with a scene of the Resurrection.¹² The instrument was completely restored and enlarged between 1630 and 1634 by Galtus and Germer van Hagerbeer of Amersfoort.¹³ In 1634, the year the restoration was completed, a group of 44 music-lovers submitted a petition asking the Haarlem authorities to allow the organ to be played on weekdays, not just Sundays, which was a controversial issue around this time. Saenredam embarked on a series of drawings of the church that same year. The prominence of the organ in this painting has led to the speculation that local organ enthusiasts may have commissioned Saenredam.¹⁴ The choice of the instrument as the central motif in the painting could equally well have been Saenredam’s, however, for organs play an important part in many of his church interiors.¹⁵

As is usual in Saenredam’s church interiors, the figures are painted on top of the background. It is assumed that they are by Saenredam himself.¹⁶ The most prominent ones are the woman with the children in the left foreground and the man with the sword in the middleground. A man and a woman can be seen in the gallery in the right background. Several authors have written about the bearing that the staffage might have on the interpretation of the painting,¹⁷ although without arriving at a totally convincing theory.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 258.