From floor level, we look toward a semicircular apse of a window-lined, light-filled church in this vertical painting. We are situated near the left wall, so we look along that wall into the apse, where there is a painting set in an elaborate frame over an altar. Soaring above us, the cream-white walls are divided into three zones, with arched openings at the bottom level, a narrow, shallow walkway above, and a row of tall, arched windows at the top.
Vertical, rose-pink ribs between the windows in the top level converge just off the top center of the painting, in a curved, ribbed vault. Five tall windows line the semicircular apse, and two windows in the hall-like nave that we stand in extends to the right and off the edge of the composition. The sky beyond is powder blue with soft, billowing clouds. In the middle, clerestory level below the windows, two dark brown tapestries hang over two of the openings above the altar.
There are square, brown pennants on long rods at each of the upper corners, and lighter brown shapes on the tapestries could be coats of arms. One tapestry is dated 1598 and the other 1621. The latter is inscribed with “ALBERTO AVSTRIA CO” and “PATRI PATRIAE SILVA DVCIS DICAT CONSECRAT.” On our level, the lowest level, more light-filled windows peek out from an outer wall that runs behind the arched openings. Stone sculptures of men and women, painted in the same creamy tones as the walls, stand on shallow platforms high on the face of the columns separating the openings.
Along the floor, wooden choir stalls are tucked between the columns. The slate-gray floor has brick-red and putty-gray squares and rectangles set at irregular intervals. At the end of the apse, across from us, the stone-gray altar is covered with lace-edged cloths, four tall candlesticks, and two pots of flowers. Above it, the painting is about as tall as the windows around it. It is flanked by a pair of columns marbled with carnation pink and white to each side, and is set into brown and white architectural framework.
The painting shows people and cattle gathered around an infant in a manger, with angels floating above. Near or above the choir stall to our left, a solitary, bald man wearing a voluminous white garment kneels facing away from us, looking toward the altar. The artist inscribed the painting with his name, date, and location as if written on the end of the choir stall to our left: “Ao 1646 pieter Saenredam dit geschildert de sintjans kerck in shartogenbosch.”
