Assen – anonymous, c. 1895
€950
19TH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT MAP OF ASSEN
Plan of the city of Assen, pen-and-watercolour drawing made by an anonymous surveyor around 1895. Size (paper): 51.5 × 70 cm.
During the nineteenth century, the population of Assen increased twentyfold to around 11,000 inhabitants. Assen was among the fastest-growing towns in the Netherlands during that century.
As an administrative centre, Assen attracted enterprising and affluent residents, as well as initiatives that contributed to the town’s slow but steady growth in amenities and status. These included a newspaper printing office in 1823, a Latin school in 1825, a stagecoach service to Groningen in 1830, a courthouse in 1840, the beginnings of a military garrison in 1852 and a railway station in 1870. Also of considerable importance was the Drentsche Hoofdvaart, which was extended right into the heart of the town, with the stately residences of its initiators now lining both sides of the canal, and the opening of the Noord-Willemskanaal in 1861.
The municipality laid out new neighbourhoods and streets, including the area around the railway station after 1870 and Assen-Oost after 1900. For such developments, overview maps showing land ownership were often prepared, so that it was clear which plots needed to be acquired and which were already in public ownership. The fact that this map identifies, for example, the Court of Justice and the Dutch Reformed Church, as well as individual private landowners, suggests that it served as a working map for establishing how the land surrounding the existing town was divided. It was probably a municipal site plan prepared in connection with plans for urban development or expansion.
Price: Euro 950,-
