Interieur van de Ronde Lutherse Kerk te Amsterdam c. 1770 - 1783

Hermanus Petrus Schouten made this print of the interior of Amsterdam’s Lutheran Church in the late 18th or early 19th century. Amsterdam was a society structured around religion and class, and Schouten’s image offers a glimpse into how sacred spaces reflected and reinforced these social divisions. The print meticulously captures the church’s architecture, emphasizing its grandeur and scale. The Lutheran church, while a place of worship, was also a social space where class distinctions would have been evident in seating arrangements and ceremonial roles. We can use period documents, church records, and social histories of Amsterdam to understand the image better. These resources would reveal how religious institutions like the Lutheran Church operated within the city’s complex social and political landscape. By studying the artwork in relation to its context, we can better understand the social function of art and the way that it interacts with institutions.