A tour through Holland

by Sir John Carr

“Discite Justitiam moniti

“Et non temnere Divos.”

Above, between the rails, are the old and new city arms, and at the bottom are death’s-heads and bones. The whole of the interior is composed of white marble; on the south and north are two eows of fluted pilasters, one above another; on the west side are statues representing four nude women, supporting the cornices which crown the pilasters: two of these figures conceal their faces with their hands, as indicative of shame: in the copartments between are basso-relievos, representing the judgment of Solomon; Zaleucus, the Locrian king, tearing out one of his eyes, to save one of his son’s who had been condemned to lose both for adultery, by a law made expressly against that crime by his father; and Junius Brutus putting his sons to death. Above these are figures representing Romulus and Remus drawing milk from the she wolf, and also of Jupiter: the head of Medusa upon the shield of Pallas is very finely executed. In the north, under a seat of white marble, is a place for the secretary, who pronounces the fatal sentence when the magistrates appear in their robes at a gallery on the west side. On the fore part of the judgement seat is a fine marble statue of Silence, which Dutch gallantry represents under the form of a woman, seated on the ground, with her finger on her mouth, and two children weeping over a death’s-head. On each side of this seat are serpents writhing round a tree, each with an apple in his mouth; the same ornaments also decorate the sides of the door: above the seat is a statue, raised on a black marble pedestal, representing the city of Amsterdam as a virgin, guarded by a lion on each side; above the head of the figure is an imperial crown, protected by a spread eagle; on each side of the pedestal are Neptune and Glaucus, representative of the rivers Y and Amstel, and a little higher are the arms of the four burgomasters, in whose magistracy the first stone of this building was laid, gracefully connected by festoons. On the pedestal is an inscription in letters of gold, commemorative of the laying of the first stone of the building.

The principal bas-reliefs and ornaments in this room, and other parts of this edifice, were made by Artus Quellinus, a celebrated statuary of Antwerp. When the awful doom of the law is to be pronounced, the criminal is brought into this hall guarded, and nothing is omitted in point of solemnity to impress on the mind of the delinquent and the spectators the awful consequences of violating the laws of the country.

A thorough knowledge of human nature dictated the policy of placing this hall on the ground-floor, the brazen door of which opens into a thoroughfare passage through the Stadt-house. I never passed by this door without seeing numbers of the lower orders of people gazing through the rails of it upon the emblematical objects within, and apparently in melancholy meditation, reflecting upon the purposes to which this hall is applied, and upon the ignominious results of deviating from the paths of virtue. On one side of this chamber is a a grand double staircase, which leads to the Burghers’, or Marble Hall: it is 120 feet long, about 57 broad, and 80 high, and is entirely composed of white marble, as are the galleries, which are 21 feet wide on each side, into which the entrances to the different courts of justice, the chamber of domains, of insurance, of orphans, the council-room, the offices of the bank, &c. open. This magnificent room and the surrounding galleries were seen to great advantage, on account of their having been cleaned previous to the coronation of the king, which was intended to have taken place in it about a month after I visited it. A great number of workmen had been employed in scraping, washing, and polishing their marble sides for several months, and their appearance was equally grand and beautiful: the bronze gates and railing which form the grand entrance of the hall are massy, yet exquisitely executed: over this entrance is a colonade of Corinthian pillars of red and white marble. At one end is a colossal figure of Atlas supporting on his shoulders the globe, attended by Vigilance and Wisdom. The roof is painted with allegorical figures. Upon the floor, the celestial and terrestrial globes are delineated in brass and various coloured marbles, arranged in three large circles twenty-two feet diameter; the two external ones representing the hemispheres of the earth, and the centre the planisphere of the heavens.

The Burgomaster’s Cabinet, as it is still called, is a handsome apartment, the entrance of which is adorned with some beautiful carving, emblematical of the use of the apartment. The chimney-piece in this room, representing the triumphs of Fabius Maximus, is worthy of notice. To the left of the Burgomasters’ chamber is a gallery, ten feet deep and thirty broad, where, after the ringing of a bell to give notice, all proclamations, law sentences, and municipal regulations, are promulgated.

The chamber of the treasury ordinary contains a picture of Mary de Medicis as large as life; a chart of Amsterdam as it appeared when first walled round in 1482; and on the bookcases are some curious effigies of the ancient Earls and Countesses of Holland.

The Burgomasters’ apartment is forty-five feet broad and thirty deep, and is in my opinion the handsomest room in the Stadt-house. The marble chimney-pieces are enriched with many exquisitely sculptured basso-relievos by De Wit; but its chief ornament is two paintings; one by Ferdinand Bol, representing Curius at his rural repast; and the other, Fabricius in the camp of Phyrrhus, by Flink. From this room there is a passage to the Execution Chamber, or the Chamber of the last Prayers, where criminals condemned to death take leave of their priest, and pass through a window, the lower part of which is of wood, to enable its being opened level with the floor to the scaffold, which is constructed on the outside, opposite to the weigh-house, and which is raised as high as this part of the building. There is nothing in this room worthy of notice, except its melancholy appropriation. From this room we were conducted to the council chamber, which is forty-five feet wide and thirty deep, where there is a very large painting by Jacob de Wilt, representing Moses and the seventy elders of Israel. Above the chimney-piece to the north is a very fine picture by Flink, the subject Solomon imploring heaven for wisdom. Above this is a scriptural subject, a noble production, from the pencil of Bronkhorst. Some of the basso-relievos which adorn various parts of this room, sculptured by De Wit, are exquisitely fine, particularly a hive of bees, a clock, a sieve and a lamp, a pen and ink-horn. It would puzzle a magician to interpret many of the allegorical devices, but they are all beautifully executed.

In the chamber for marriages, and injuries, there is nothing to arrest the attention of a visitor one minute. In Holland, marriage being a civil contract, when agreed upon in Amsterdam, it is always first performed before the magistrates in this room, without whose fiat the ceremony would be invalid; the clergyman, according to the religion of the parties, performs his functions afterwards. This room is also called, amongst the lower orders of people, the Scolding Chamber, on account of the irritability frequently displayed here by parties of that class, when they come to obtain redress for small offences. We were also led through the chamber for sea affairs, the mercers’ hall, the painters’ chamber, and in this room, but little suited to the treasures which it contains, is a very long picture by Vandyke, in which there is a gray head of an old man, of matchless excellence, which the observer cannot but retire from with regret. The burgomasters of Amsterdam were offered seven thousand florins for this head alone, to be cut out from the rest of the picture. There is also a large picture by Vanderhelst, representing a feast given by the burgomasters of Amsterdam to the ambassadors of Spain, on account of the peace of Munster, which closed a war that had lain waste the Netherlands for eighty years; and many other large and fine paintings by Rubens, Jordaans, and Otho Venius. It is a matter of surprise, that after Holland submitted to the French arms, these exquisite productions should be permitted to remain, upon the walls which they have so long adorned.

In the great, or council of war chamber, there are some good paintings representing the ancient train-bands, and officers in their proper costume; many of which are portraits. In the secretary’s office, a handsome room, amongst other decorations, is a basso-relievo of Silence, which the Dutch are very fond of representing under the form of a woman. Upon my observing to a Dutchman, that in England such a compliment had never been paid to my own lovely country women, he replied: “Yes, but do you not notice that the statuary has placed the finger of the lady upon her mouth, as if he thought that no one of the sex, not even a Dutch female, could preserve silence without keeping her lips forcibly together with her finger.” The convenience of having nearly all the principal public offices, and courts of justice under one roof, is very great; the size of the kingdom, and simplicity of its public transactions, render such a concentration more easy of accomplishment in Holland than in England.