Amsterdam, IJ – Pierre Fouquet after Herman Schouten, 1769

“WINTER-GEZICHT, aan het Y-kant, bij de HARING PACKERS TOREN te zien, tot Amsterdam” [Winter scene, on the IJ-side, near the Haringpakkerstoren, to be seen in Amsterdam.]. Etching with engraving, based on a drawing by Herman Schouten. Published by Pierre Fouquet Jr. around 1783 in his atlas containing approximately 100 illustrations of the “widely renowned trading city of Amsterdam. All drawn from life.” With original hand colouring. Size (print) approx. 27 x 35 cm.

People enjoy skating on the IJ before Amsterdam, near the entrance to the Singel and the Haringpakkerstoren [Herring Packers’ Tower]. To the left, the so-called Nieuwe Stadsherberg [new city inn].

The Herring Packers’ Tower was built in the Middle Ages as a fortification on the northwestern corner of the city’s ramparts. During the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands, city residents who renounced the Catholic faith were imprisoned in this tower. Shortly after, these ‘convicted’ individuals were secretly bound hand and foot and thrown backward from the tower into the IJ at night, without any interrogation or trial.

At that time, the Singel still flowed directly into the IJ at the tower’s location. The section of the present-day Prins Hendrikkade near this corner was called Haringpakkerij (the buildings to the left of the tower) because herring packers salted and barreled herring there.

The spire on the tower was added in the seventeenth century by city architect Hendrick de Keyser. The herring packers held meetings inside the tower. A city ordinance from 1601 stipulated that when a small bell in the tower rang, herring packers in the vicinity had to report to their workplace.

None of that is happening in this scene. The IJ is frozen solid, shipping is impossible, and everything has come to a standstill. Skaters glide across the ice. Stalls selling food and drink have been set up, and horses pull sleighs. Simpler folk are pushed in their sleds by hand.

The Herring Packers’ Tower was demolished in 1829 because the impoverished city found the maintenance of the now-neglected structure too costly.

Price: Euro 950,-