The Old Town Hall of Amsterdam

The Old Town Hall of Amsterdam

SK-C-1409

• signature, date and inscription, lower right, on the front of the shed roofs of the shops: ‘Pieter Saenredam, Heeft dit eerst naer t'Leeven Geteeckent met al sijn Coleuren int Jaer 1641. en dit Geschildert, int jaer 1657.’
• inscription, lower centre, on the step: ‘Dit is het oude Raethuijs der stadt Amsterdam, welck afbrande int jaer 1651 den 7 julij, in 3 uren tyt sonder meer.’

Saenredam based this painting on a drawing he had made sixteen years earlier. On the step of the portico, he noted that the dilapidated town hall had in the meantime been destroyed by fire and replaced by a new monumental one (now the Palace on Dam Square). From 1658 this painting hung in the stately chamber of the mayors in the new Town Hall as a memento of the old building.

painter: Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (signed by artist)

1657

olieverf op paneel

height 65.5 cm x width 84.5 cm

On loan from the City of Amsterdam

Public domain

From the artist, fl. 400, to the treasurers of the City of Amsterdam, Johan Huijdecoper and Dr Nicolaes Tulp, for the burgomasters of Amsterdam, through the mediation of Karel Godin, 30 July 1658;{Annotations by the artist on a drawing in Haarlem, Teylers Museum; Plomp in Haarlem 1997, p. 367.} first mentioned in the Burgomasters´ Chamber of the new town hall, Amsterdam, 1663;{Dapper 1663, p. 370.} temporarily stored with three other paintings from the town hall in the house of Jan Spaan, 1808;{Brugmans 1913, pp. 59-60} transferred to the Burgomasters´ Chamber of the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam;{Scheltema 1879, p. 38.} on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 1945

To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:

https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200107966