When Gerrit Lamberts took over his father’s Amsterdam bookstore in 1792, he had been trained for this career and considered his artistic activity as merely a pastime. Only in 1800 did he begin training as a painter, receiving instruction from D. Kerkhoff.
By 1806, Lamberts began to view himself as an artist and to sign his mostly topographical works. His career peaked in his appointment in 1824 as curator of the Rijksmuseum in his native city.