View Down a Dutch Canal
Jan van der Heyden·c. 1670
Historical Context
Van der Heyden's View Down a Dutch Canal, painted around 1670, exemplifies his specialty in topographic townscapes that document seventeenth-century Dutch urban life with extraordinary precision. Van der Heyden, who was also an inventor and the organizer of Amsterdam's street lighting system, brought an engineer's eye to his architectural views. His canal scenes capture the orderly, prosperous character of Dutch Golden Age cities with meticulous accuracy.
Technical Analysis
Van der Heyden's oil-on-panel technique renders the canal-side buildings with almost obsessive architectural precision, each brick and window meticulously depicted. The reflections in the canal water and the atmospheric sky add naturalistic depth to the precisely rendered architectural elements.
Provenance
Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk [1847-1917], by 1880;[1] by inheritance to his son, Bernard Marmaduke Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk [1908-1975]; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 11 February 1938, no. 99); B. de Geus van den Heuvel [1886-1976], Nieuwersluis; (his estate sale, Sotheby Mak van Waay B.V. at Round Lutheran Church, Singel, Amsterdam, 26-27 April 1976, no. 23); (David Koetser, Zurich); private collection, West Berlin; on consignment with (Hoogsteder-Naumann, New York); purchased 1986 by George M. [1932-2001] and Linda H. Kaufman, Norfolk, Virginia; Kaufman Americana Foundation, Norfolk; gift 2012 to NGA. [1] The painting was lent by the duke to the 1880 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. It is not yet known when or where the Dukes of Norfolk acquired it. See the entry on the painting by Ben Broos in _Great Dutch Paintings from America_, exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: no. 31, 280-284.
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