Biography

Saenredam’s paintings of church interiors and town halls demonstrate his remarkable eye for architectural detail and his sophisticated use of linear perspective. He achieved a sensitive balance between topographical accuracy and pleasing design in his finished works, which were the result of meticulous preparation through carefully measured drawings. Saenredam’s father was an engraver who died when Saenredam was ten. He moved with his mother from Assendelft to Haarlem, where he was apprenticed to the artist Frans de Grebber. His friend, the architect Jacob van Campen, made a portrait sketch of Saenredam which shows him to have been hunchbacked.