Old exchange of Rotterdam – Jacob Josephus van Rijckevorsel, c. 1840

“De Beurs en beursbrug te Rotterdam”, rare lithograph made around 1840 by Jacob Josephus van Rijckevorsel (1785-1862). Coloured by a…

“De Beurs en beursbrug te Rotterdam”, rare lithograph made around 1840 by Jacob Josephus van Rijckevorsel (1785-1862). Coloured by a later hand. Size: 53,5 x 65,6 cm.

We see the Blaak (canal) with the Zuidblaak, the Beurs [exchange] and the Beursbrug [exchange bridge] (built in 1826 to replace the old double-beam drawbridge). The streets are not very busy. A merchant unloads his ship, part of his goods have been loaded onto a sled. He quarrels with a vegetable seller.

More than ten years before the exhange of Hendrick de Keyser was built n Amsterdam – in 1598 to be precise – Rotterdam already had an exchange on the Haringvliet. There was mainly trade in goods. Lack of space meant that trade moved to the Noordblaak in 1635. From 1736, the trade took place in a new building building designed by architect Adriaen van der Werff on Westnieuwland, on the north bank of the Blaak. The square in front of the eastern entrance became the Beursplein. It was said that the Rotterdam exchange was the most beautiful in Holland, perhaps even the most beautiful in all of Europe.

In 1867 the building was given a glass roof after the example of London’s Crystal Palace. In 1877, the Rotterdam Beurs train station was opened across the Beursplein as part of the Luchtspoor Breda-Rotterdam railway line. The building was destroyed on 14 May 1940 during the bombing of Rotterdam.

Price: Euro 1.250,-