Rotterdam – Voorn Boers & Co. after Hendrick Haestens, (1599) 1832

ROTTERDAM AT A PIVOTAL MOMENT OF GROWTH

“Grondkaart der stad Rotterdam, op het einde der XVI eeuw” [Plan of the City of Rotterdam at the End of the Sixteenth Century]. Lithograph made in 1832 by Voorn Boers & Co., as a folding plate in Gijbert van Reyn’s “Geschiedkundige beschrijving der stad Rotterdam en beknopt overzigt van het Hoogheemraadschap van Schieland” [Historical Description of the City of Rotterdam and a Concise Survey of the District Water Board of Schieland], published by Wed. Van der Meer en Verbruggen. Coloured by a later hand. Size: 43 × 51 cm.

This lithograph reproduces the copper engraving of Rotterdam published in 1599 by Hendrick Haestens. The map has an unusual orientation: south-east lies approximately at the top, placing the River Maas along the upper edge of the image.

At lower left, an extensive key of 48 numbered references identifies the principal buildings, harbours, gates, bridges and streets. The cartouches bear the arms of Holland, Prince Maurice, Rotterdam and the Admiralty of the Maze.

The map depicts Rotterdam at an exceptional transitional stage in its development. The medieval town, which had grown around the dam in the Rotte and the Hoogstraat, had been substantially extended southwards towards the Maas from about 1575 onwards. Hendrick Haestens was the first to show clearly the outline of the later City Triangle. The eastern part of the newly laid-out Waterstad, including the Nieuwehaven and Haringvliet, was largely complete; farther west, extensive open ground still remained, where the Wijnhaven, Scheepmakershaven and Leuvehaven would soon be laid out. Around 1600 Rotterdam had a population of approximately 13,000, while trade, shipping and immigration from the Southern Netherlands rapidly increased its importance.

Haestens presents the city not only as it actually existed, but also as recent plans envisaged it. New fortifications are shown along the Maas: the Coolvest continues towards a straight wall with towers and a bastion, while a new Schiedam Gate appears at the end of the Schiedamsedijk. This riverside defensive system was, however, never constructed in this form. The map is therefore both an accurate townscape and an ambitious prospectus of a mercantile city visibly preparing for further expansion.

The Leuvehaven is also still absent, although work on the former creek known as De Leuve had begun in 1598. In the years that followed, the harbour was deepened, provided with quays and completed around 1608–1609. Along the river, the quay that came to be known as the Boompjes developed from 1615 onwards, when a double row of lime trees was planted there: at once a promenade, a prestigious riverside frontage and a working quay for shipping.

The lithograph of 1832 preserved precisely this vanished moment: Rotterdam still enclosed by walls, gates and open plots, yet already recognisable as the commercial city whose harbours, quays and connection with the Maas would determine its later history.

Price: Euro 575,-