Interior of an Imaginary Catholic Church in Classical Style
by HOUCKGEEST, Gerard, Oil on panel, 69 x 98 cm
In this panel Houckgeest reinterprets the Early Christian Basilica in the style of his own time. Certain elements of the design, such as the barrel-vaulted narthex and the giant order of columns and pilasters in the foreground, recall Catholic churches built in the Spanish Netherlands during the first third of the seventeenth century.
Similar compositions were painted from the 1620s onward by Dirck van Delen and Bartholomeus van Bassen.
The painting is signed lower right, on the column base: G. Houckgeest Fe(cit).