Lot Essay
De Lorme's precise date of birth is unknown, although it was in Doornik and probably in 1610. He is first recorded in Rotterdam in 1627, when he acted as a witness for his teacher, Jan van Vucht, and he was married in the city in 1647 and died there in 1673. His earliest known picture dates from 1639 and shows a church interior that is derived from, although not identical to, the St. Laurenskerk in Rotterdam. Throughout the 1640s he painted only imaginary church interiors, often shown at night, and in these he was influenced by the work of his teacher, Van Vucht, as well as by Bartholomeus van Bassen. Around 1652 de Lorme painted his first real view of the interior of the St. Laurenskerk and thereafter the majority of his oeuvre consists of paintings of that church.