_Emanuel de Witte_ (Dutch: 1607-1692). _Room X._
Witte was a native of Alkmaar, but settled at Delft, where he
probably met another architectural painter, Dirk van Delen.
"An exact knowledge of perspective, a perfect conception of
light and shade, and a delicacy of execution which reveals
every detail without degenerating into dryness, figures well
drawn and sufficiently picturesque ... are the qualities which
distinguish his works" (Havard: _The Dutch School_, p. 245).
The picture before us is not a very favourable specimen of
the painter's skill. In the gallery at Hertford House one of
his masterpieces may be seen. His style, says Mr. Phillips in
his catalogue of that collection, "is absolutely opposed to
that of the somewhat earlier painters of the Flemish School,
Steenwyck the Younger and Pieter Neeffs the Elder, who obtained
their chief effects by accuracy of linear perspective, while
De Witte realised his by broad and masterly chiaroscuro. In
his treatment of light and colour he shows some affinity to
Pieter de Hooch." The date of his birth is uncertain; it should
perhaps be 1617.
Notice the anti-Pauline practice of the worshippers ("Every man
praying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every
woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head"--1
Corinthians xi. 4, 5). Here it is the women who are "uncovered," the
men who are "covered."