De ophaalbrug

Summer light bathes a drawbridge and a row of canal houses. This city view may have sprouted from Van der Heyden’s imagination, but it was based on actual sites in Amsterdam. In the right foreground a dog relieves itself on the column of an antiquated building that resembles the old town hall, which burned down in 1652. The two millstones in the centre foreground are objects that were traded near the Amsterdam harbour.