View of Amsterdam from the Harbour

The artwork

In front of the city, halfway up the picture, two long rows of piles run through the water, with little wooden huts at the gaps: they were Amsterdam's walls on the harbour side, and every evening they were closed. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• Amsterdam in 1739 from the harbour, with ships, windmills and the rows of piles in the water, in black.
• In a bright kitchen or above a desk, the sails bring the wall to life.
• A gift for anyone who loves Amsterdam or boats.

On the land side the city had walls and gates; on the waters of the IJ, along about three kilometres of harbour, a double row of piles kept enemy ships out and marked the customs boundary. In the evening a bell gave warning and the gaps were barred with “bomen”, long floating beams studded with iron spikes. In December 1679 two bargemen, Pieter Heeringa and Barent Wemmers, went to a notary: they had collected sixty lots of prunes from a ship, half of them soaked with seawater, and nobody on board would sign the note of damage. Going back to argue was impossible: the boom was about to close and it was starting to freeze.

In the foreground warships fire their guns amid smoke and a decorated rowing barge carries gentlemen in wigs; behind the piles, church towers and windmills. The plate, with the name “Amsterdam” on a ribbon, comes from the Profiles ou vues des principales villes de l'Europe, the views that the bookseller Henri du Sauzet published in Amsterdam itself in 1739 to complete his pocket atlas, the Atlas de poche. It is a copper engraving in black, and the copy reproduced here is in the David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford.

Hung in a bright kitchen or above the desk, it is a gift for anyone who left their heart in Amsterdam or loves boats. And in front of the city the gaps are still open: the bell has not rung yet.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass