A View of Delft
A wide-angle sweep of a Delft street corner, a lute-seller idle at his stall, the Nieuwe Kerk rising beyond — a rare survivor by Carel Fabritius.
Nieuwe Kerk Delft
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
A View of Delft — at a glance
- Artist
- Carel Fabritius (1622–1654)
- Year
- 1652
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
- Place
- A street corner by the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft, the Netherlands
- Viewpoint
- A real Delft corner, distorted by a deliberate wide-angle / lens effect — the Nieuwe Kerk tower survives
- Medium
- Oil on canvas laid on panel
- Dimensions
- c. 15 × 32 cm
- Now at
- The National Gallery, London
Overview
A View of Delft is one of only about a dozen surviving paintings by Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt's most gifted pupil, who was killed in 1654 when the Delft gunpowder store exploded. Made in 1652, it is a small, strange picture: a man — a seller of stringed instruments — sits at the left behind a stall with a lute and a viola da gamba, while a broad, curving view opens past him along a canal to a church and the town. It is oil on canvas laid on panel, about 15 by 32 cm, and it hangs in the National Gallery, London.
Where was A View of Delft painted?
Scholarship The view is of a real spot in Delft: looking from near the Oude Langendijk along the water, with the tall tower of the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) on Delft's market square rising over the rooftops, and a bare-branched tree in the foreground. The extreme wide angle and the bowed perspective suggest the picture was made to be seen through a viewing box or a lens, so the geometry is deliberately distorted. The Nieuwe Kerk tower and the canal streets of Delft still stand, so the scene can be broadly located, though the exact stall corner is gone.
What is in the painting?
On the left, close to the viewer, the instrument seller sits in dark clothes at a wooden counter, a lute lying on it, a viola da gamba propped against the stall, a canopy overhead. Past him the ground and canal sweep away in an exaggerated curve: a bridge, a row of brick houses along the water, the leaning bare tree, and the pale square tower of the Nieuwe Kerk against a cloudy sky.
Look closely
The instrument seller
A man in dark clothes sits at a stall with a lute on the counter and a viola da gamba propped beside it.
The Nieuwe Kerk tower
The pale square church tower on Delft's market square rises over the rooftops — still standing.
The bulging street
The canal and houses sweep away in an exaggerated curve — a deliberate lens or peep-box effect.
The bare tree
A leaning, leafless tree stands in the middle distance beside the water.
Analysis
Composition and technique
An extreme, curved wide-angle view, with a large near figure at one edge and the town bowing away past him.
Scholarship Fabritius exaggerates the perspective so much that the street and canal seem to bulge — almost certainly a lens or peep-box effect deliberately reproduced. The near stall is painted large and dark, the town small, pale and warped beyond it; light and cool grey air fill the distance.
History & provenance
The painting was little known until the twentieth century; it was bought by the National Gallery, London, in 1922.
Sources
- The National Gallery, London — collection entry for Carel Fabritius, ‘A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall’ (1652)
- Walter Liedtke, ‘Vermeer and the Delft School’ (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001)
Related paintings
View of Delft
1661
Vermeer's calm panorama of the same town from across its harbour, a few years later.
The Courtyard of a House in Delft
1658
De Hooch's Delft courtyard of 1658 — the same town, framed through a passage rather than a lens.
The Little Street
1658
Vermeer's close view of Delft house-fronts.