Amsterdam – Joan Blaeu(?), 1661

AMSTERDAM PLANS ITS FOURTH EXPANSION

“Amstelodamum Celebre Emporium Forma Plana” [Amsterdam, the celebrated trading city, in plan.] Copper engraving made by Claes Jansz. Visscher or Joan Blaeu in 1661. Coloured by a later hand. Size: 48.5 × 57.5 cm.

It is likely that Amsterdam’s municipal government commissioned both the copperplate and the map. The area designated for the Fourth Expansion had not yet been engraved, most probably because its final layout had not yet been determined. In effect, this was a working map on which alternative divisions of the Fourth Expansion and other proposed developments could be visualised through hand-drawn annotations. Several impressions survive in the Amsterdam City Archives that were similarly used as working maps.

The design, with buildings in the upper corners and a city profile along the lower edge, goes back to a map by Claes Jansz. Visscher. The stock exchange at right is a reduced version of another view made by Visscher. The depiction of Amsterdam’s historic centre derives from a map by Johannes Janssonius, who had in turn used plans by Joan Blaeu as models.

Joan Blaeu may have been the publisher of this particular example. Blaeu was a member of Amsterdam’s vroedschap, the city’s ruling council, and served on a committee of seven men appointed to advise on the city’s expansions. It is conceivable that the committee at some point needed a map showing the still-blank Fourth Expansion, which they could then annotate themselves. Through these positions, Joan Blaeu maintained direct connections with many other Amsterdam city officials, perhaps enabling him to obtain the commission more easily than other mapmakers.

The map was never completed. The municipal authorities may have intended to issue a final version once the Fourth Expansion had received its definitive form. It was probably also intended that numbered references would be added to the new extension, to be explained in the empty cartouche at left. Yet, from 1662 onwards, several commercial publishers, including Nicolaes Visscher and the Danckerts family, filled this gap in the market. A municipal edition from a plate that still required updating therefore became superfluous. The map remained what it was: an unfinished publication.

Literature: Marc Hameleers “Kaarten van Amsterdam 1538-1865”, no. 40.

Price: Euro 2.450,-