WITTE, Emanuel de (Alkmaar, c. 1616 – Amsterdam, 1692)
The son of Jacomijntge van der Beck and a schoolmaster, Pieter de Wit, Emanuel de Witte was born in Alkmaar in about 1616. While the record of his birth has not been discovered, its date can be approximated by references to his age in later documents. De Witte entered the St. Luke’s guild in his hometown in 1636 following an apprenticeship mentioned by Arnold Houbraken to the Delft still life artist, Evert van Aelst (1602–1657). In 1639 and 1640 he was in Rotterdam, but in 1641 settled in Delft, where his daughter Jacquemyntgen was baptised. The following year he married the child’s mother, Geertgen Arents, and joined the local guild. De Witte remained in Delft until 1652 when he moved permanently to Amsterdam. He served as an appraiser for paintings in Haarlem in 1654 and the following year was described as a widower when he was remarried to Lysbeth Lodewyck van der Plaes. Although he apparently was well regarded in his day, enjoyed a commission from the King of Denmark in 1658, and even received the tributes of the poet Jan Vos, De Witte was often in debt and was forced at one point to indenture himself to an Amsterdam notary. Houbraken wrote at length about his querulous personality and bouts of depression, and reports that he ended his life in suicide.
De Witte began his career in c. 1641 as a painter of mythological and biblical themes and portraits. It was only after 1650 that he specialised in church interiors. He also executed a handful of genre scenes and about ten market scenes.
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