Choir screen of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft

Johannes Bosboom's 'Choir Screen of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft' (1885) is a specific architectural subject from one of the most historically significant church interiors in the Netherlands — the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, housed the tomb of William of Orange and was one of the most important monuments of Dutch national history. The choir screen as a specific architectural element — the decorative stone or wood screen separating the choir from the nave — was both visually rich and historically layered, and Bosboom's focus on this specific element showed his architectural discrimination.

Bosboom renders the Nieuwe Kerk's choir screen with his characteristic combination of architectural precision and atmospheric light — the specific carved forms of the screen, the quality of the Dutch Reformed church interior's cool, clear light on the stone, and the spatial depth visible through and beyond the screen creating the composition's formal structure. His handling of the particular quality of the Delft church's interior light creates the atmospheric unity within the architectural precision.