Anonymous sale, Paris, Piasa, 13 June 1997, lot 21, for 4,500,000 Francs;

With Noortman Master Paintings.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition The canvas has an old lining which has inventory numbers on the reverse. The lining is ensuring a sound structural support and has successfully secured the overall pattern of very fine lines of drying craquelure which are entirely stable and are not visually distracting. Paint Surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are, 1) a very thin intermittent horizontal line approximately 3 cm below the upper horizontal framing edge which corresponds to the upper horizontal stretcher bar, 2) retouchings in the upper left corner and around the framing edges, 3) a number of very small spots and thin lines of inpainting all of which are of minimal size, with a slightly more concentrated area between the chimney of the building on the right of the composition and the right vertical framing edge. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Gerrit Berckheyde and Jan van der Heyden were the two great painters of cityscapes of the Dutch Golden Age, and it is through their eyes that we see what cities such as Amsterdam and Haarlem looked like. Unlike Van der Heyden, many of whose cityscapes are imaginary, nearly all of Berckheyde’s subjects are actual and familiar sites. 

Berckheyde painted the Dam Square in Amsterdam in a number of works from 1665 onwards. The most familiar are his views of the Town Hall looking west. These are almost portraits of the building, but often include part of the Nieuwe Kerk to the right. Almost as popular are views looking north-west, such as the present picture. They include the well-known work on panel belonging to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, signed and dated 1674, which corresponds closely in composition to the present picture, but with stronger contrast between light and shadow, and the foreground in deep shadow cast by the houses on the south side of the square, partly because the sun is at a steeper angle.¹ As in nearly all of Berckheyde’s pictures, the staffage is completely different. Closer in character to the present work in its softer modelling is the upright composition, omitting the Waag to the right, in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, dating from the mid-1670s.² 

The new Town Hall, later the Royal Palace, still dominates Dam Square, and was an enormous source of civic pride when completed in 1665, to the designs of Holland’s foremost architect, Jacob van Campen. It replaced a much smaller medieval building that was gutted by fire in 1652, and the substitution of the gothic style of the old for the magnificent new classical palace marks the emergence of Amsterdam as the capital city of one of the greatest trading nations that the world had ever seen. The choice of the classical language of architecture was intended to draw a specific parallel between the Roman and Dutch Republics. The Waag or Weigh-House was built in 1565 to replace another smaller medieval structure, and was the first building in Amsterdam to be decorated in the renaissance style. It stood near the middle of Dam Square until demolishe♈d by the French in 1808. The oldest of the three principal buildings depicted here is the late gothic Nieuwe Kerk, closing off the square to the north-west. 

Berckheyde’s Amsterdam views are not merely triumphal patriotic statements. He 🧸was also clearly interested in mood. The softer lighting of the present picture in contrast to the picture dated 1674 is explained by the slightly hazy summer sky with gently piled up unthreatening clouds. A rather grandly dressed couple admire the newly completed Town Hall, while some hatted city officials congregate in the shade outside the building. Towards the centre two gentlemen in Oriental dress – such are found in many of Berckheyde's Dam Square views – remind us that the city was a centre for trade with all the known world. To the right figures and horses wait outside the Weigh-House with bales of wool and barrels of beer or wine that are about to be or just have been weighed. The Amsterdam coat-of-arms facing us from the façade of the building reminds us that this tranquil atmosphere of gentle activity is taking place under the protection of the city, the subject of the picture.

The viewpoint of the present picture is a couple of metres to the right of Johannes Lingelbach's painting of 1656 in the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, which shows the new Town Hall under construction.³

1. See C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638–1698), Doornspijk 1991, pp. 55, 58, reproduced fig. 56.
2. Idem, p. 57.
3.  See A. van Suchtelen and A. K. Wheelock, Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, exhibition cata⛄logue, Zwolle 2🐻008, p. 53, reproduced fig. 42.