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Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698)
The town hall of Amsterdam. Signed G. Berckheide. Canvas, 75.5 × 91 cm.

The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, inv.nr.NK 1978 (on loan to the prime minister's official residence, the Catshuis).

The eighth wonder of the world, as the Amsterdamers called their new town hall, was a touristtrade favourite even before it was finished. Souvenirs of the building ranged from catchpenny prints to glorious paintings such as this. The Haarlemer Gerrit Berckheide painted at least twenty views of the building between 1665 and 1694. He even paired it with other symbols of civic and national pride, producing pendant 'portraits' of the Amsterdam town hall with paintings of the stadholder's quarter in The Hague and the cathedral of St. Bavo in Haarlem.

The building and its paintings were a symbol of something else besides civic pride: resistance to church interference in politics. The highrising dome (whose height is always exaggerated by Berckheide) was an abomination to the Calvinists of Amsterdam, who wanted to add an even higher tower to the neighboring New Church, but were prevented from doing so by the burgomasters. The denominational sympathy of an artist or his patrons can be read out of the relative heights of the town hall and the New Church in views of the Dam. In Berckheide's, as in those of Jan van der Heyden, the town hall is always taller, while a view by Cornelis de Bie includes the projected tower of the church, a tower never built, looming impossibly large.

De Jongh 1973. Schwartz 1985, p.265.