Interior of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam

De Witte was born in Alkmaar, the son of a schoolmaster. He worked in Delft and entered the Delft guild in 1642. By 1652 he settled in Amsterdam where he spent the rest of his life.

In Amsterdam de Witte continued to paint views of Delft churches, but he was inspired more often by the metropolis’s grand buildings: its Old Church, lofty New Church, Stock Exchange, and, after it was consecrated in 1675, its Portuguese-Jewish Synagogue.

This synagogue was built between 1671 and 1675 for the Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews who as of the end of the sixteenth century had settled in Amsterdam where they could profess their faith in relative freedom. In this respect the synagogue symbolizes the tolerant religious climate in the Republic of the United Netherlands. De Witte portrayed the synagogue during a service, with believers wearing hats draped with pale yellow talliths, or fringed prayer shawls. To the left of middle is the teba, or bimah (the platform in the middle of a synagogue from where the Torah is read), with on it the cantor and the parnas, or synagogue president, and against the back wall the Hechal, or Holy Ark.

It is known from contemporary sources that the synagogue was considered a sight worth seeing. This is confirmed in the present painting: most of the figures in the foreground are non-Jewish visitors.

The synagogue features more often in paintings, but only its exterior and as part of a city view. In so far as is known, De Witte is the only seventeenth-century painter to have portrayed the interior of this building. He did it at least three times.