The Interior of the Buurkerk at Utrecht

In 1586 the Buurkerk in Utrecht passed to Protestant worship. Its painted walls were whitewashed and the altarpieces removed, and nearly 60 years later Saenredam painted what was left as pale stone flooded with light, the columns stretched taller than they are. The foreground column is covered like a wall of graffiti. It gives the building's name, the date 1644 and his authorship, and above them a clumsy sketch of four riders on one horse, the four sons of Aymon, medieval knights whose tale was sold in cheap Dutch chapbooks. Over the two boys at the bottom hang the Ten Commandments with the head of Moses, while one boy tries to teach a small dog to obey. The National Gallery thinks those boys were added by another painter of the time. Since 1984 it has housed Museum Speelklok, a museum of mechanical musical instruments.