Anthonie de Lorme

1610 – 1673

Dutch painter, specialized in church interiors and painted mostly in Rotterdam. His earliest known picture, a small panel signed and dated 1639, shows a coffered barrel vault reflecting candlelight in Rotterdam's Laurenskerk. His imaginary interiors of the 1640s often betrayed an enthusiasm for flashy effects like candlelit vaults and pools of shade thrown by glowing chandeliers. Imaginary church views were De Lorme's specialty for the first twenty years of his career, but around 1652 he turned suddenly to painting simple and accurate renditions of local churches with a few figures, probably inspired by painters in nearby Delft. During the 1650s, he painted church interiors close-up, bathed in light and atmosphere. He painted the Laurenskerk at least seventeen times, so accurately that his paintings were used by the church's restorers after World War II. In the 1660s De Lorme refined his simple, realistic style into a more decorative manner, using architecture to create an elegant geometric pattern rather than an objective view.

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