Berckheyde was one of the earliest and most important of the Dutch painters of townscapes in the seventeenth century. A native of Haarlem, whose Painters Guild he joined in 1660, he spent most of his career in that city, where the landmarks formed the most significant part of his work. Berckheyde’s style was built upon accurate observation and truth to architectural detail but displayed in a composed and uncrowded style in which the atmosphere of both place and architecture was given expression by the dramatic play of areas of light and shade. Situated slightly outside the city’s historic centre, this view shows one of Haarlem’s focal trading points, the Damstraat’s quay alongside the river Spaarne, where the weigh-house or Waegh was situated. Berckheyde’s views of Haarlem such as this were hugely important in pioneering the painting of townscapes as an independent genre and provide an unrivalled representation of the city throughout a period of over thirty years.

The view here is taken from the south bank of the river Spaarne, looking north towards the merchants houses on the Damstraat. The skyline beyond is dominated by the Grote Kerk or Sint Bavo Kerk, the old Gothic Catholic cathedral which had been converted to a Protestant church in 1578. On the right stands the Waag or weigh-house, designed by Lieven de Key around 1597 and built of blue stone from Namur in Flanders, the only building in Haarlem to be so constructed. The Waag or Waegh was a major Haarlem landmark, and was strategically placed at the junction of the Spaarne with the beek, a small canal carrying fresh water from the dunes to serve the Haarlem breweries. Here the large wooden crane shown in the centre of the painting was used to hoist the grain and other goods from ships into the Waag for weighing and then back to other ships for onward transport. This process – including the great weighing scales used in the Waag itself – can be clearly seen in a print by Romeyn de Hoogh made just a few years earlier than the present painting in 1688–89 (fig. 1). The house second from the left was formerly the studio and home of the artist Cornelis van Haarlem (1562–1638), which he inherited from his father, mayor of Haarlem and a wealthy brewer.

As one of Haarlem’s most important sites, it was not surprising that as her greatest city painter Berckheyde painted the Spaarne and the Waag on several occasions. This painting is one of three or more variants of this scene that Berckheyede made over a period of over thirty years from the late 1660s to (if the date on the present picture is correctly read as 1696) the late 1690s. As well as the present panel, at least two other views taken from the same standpoint are known, both of similar size but with variations in the ships and the figures and activities on the Damstraat quay. The only other dated picture is a canvas of 1667 in the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai (fig. 2),¹ and the other a panel today preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg (fig. 3).² In all three paintings Berckheyde has depicted the scene in the late afternoon, setting off the sunlit Damstraat and the western façades of the houses with those facing us, and contrasting the warm tones of the brickwork with the cooler blue tones afforded by the stone of the Waag, the waters of the Spaarne and the distant roof of the St-Bavokerk. This sophisticated use of lengthening shadows and angled light helps create a sense of recession and is very typical of Berckheyde’s work, increasingly so in his mature years. Berckheyde depicted the Waag and the Spaarne again in an undated panel today in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but on this occasion approaching the view from a more westerly standpoint, including the Bakenessertoren on the left and the Gravensteenen Bridge in the right distance. As Lawrence has observed, this more diagonal perspective was a feature of Berckheyde’s works in both Haarlem and Amsterdam in the mid-1670s, and the Rijksmuseum painting probably dates from that period.³

Berckheyde’s dispassionate and reflective paintings, with their emphasis on public monuments and uncluttered spaces may reflect the influence of the greatest of architectural painters, Pieter Saenredam (see lot 16 in this sale). They certainly stood in contrast to the more decorative and local prospects fashioned by the other great Dutch townscape painter of the age, Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712). Although he also specialized in townscapes of both Amsterdam and The Hague and also visited Germany, Berckheyede never left Haarlem, and served as an official of the Guild of Saint Luke as late as 1691–95. He died on 10 January 1698, having fallen into the Brouwersvaart canal on his return home from a tavern.

¹ Inv. no. 190, canvas, 44.5 x 53.5 cm. C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1632–1698), Doornspijk 1991, p. 44, reproduced plate 35.
² Inv. no. 55.2019.2.1, panel, 37 x 52 cm. Lawrence 1991, pp. 43–44, n. 69, reproduced in colour plate 2. The author also lists on p 43, n. 70, several other works depicting the same or similar view recorded in early sources, but whose dimensions do not match those of the present work.
³ Inv. no. A35, panel, 32 x 45.5 cm. Lawrence 1991, p. 44, reproduced plate 36.