Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft, with the Pulpit of 1548

In this scene set around the pulpit in the Oude Kerks’s nave, Houckgeest departs from his main interest in the works of 1650-51 which are concerned with the Delft churches themselves and their most important tomb monuments. Here the principal points of interest include the casual encounter of a man and woman in the foreground, the illusionistic curtain and wood frame; the picturesque sunlight streaming through crystalline air; the coral colour of the column bases, of the brick arches in the transept, and of figures in the stained-glass.

The painting is signed in monogram and dated centre bottom on the fictive frame, in foreshortening: GH 165(1).