Veere was a small, walled and moated town in Zeeland on the strait between Walcheren and Noord Beveland. The Zeeland ports – Brielle, Vlissingen and Veere – still have a mythic significance for the Dutch as the first towns captured by the Sea Beggars from the Spanish during the Eighty Years’ War, in April and May 1572. However, it is clear from contemporary maps that this is no topographical view of Veere: the Groote Kerk is entirely accurate, as is the general effect of brick fortifications and drawbridges; however, the palace to the right and the circuit of high ground leading from it towards what appears to be a Roman aqueduct are all entirely imaginary. Van der Heyden used monuments from cities lying at some distance from his native Amsterdam – Cologne, Düsseldorf and Veere – more freely than local ones. His patrons, mostly also from Amsterdam, might recognise a far-off church, but would happily accept any urban context the artist chose for it. On the other hand this view has nothing of the caprice about it: it feels like a real Dutch town, whether or not the original owner knew it or thought of it as Veere.

There are untended, and therefore picturesque, elements in this city view – a beggar, some vegetation growing though old brickwork – but the general effect is of neatness, order, security and prosperity. This is a real version of those ideal chessboard cities painted by artists of the Italian Renaissance. To have had such a wide, brick-paved road outside the gates of a city would have seemed especially remarkable and should be compared with contemporary views of Rome.

Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) spent his working life in Amsterdam though he travelled extensively. He transformed cities as well as painting them. In 1668 he proposed to the city of Amsterdam a system of street lighting which would prevent burglaries and people falling into the canals in the dark; as a reward he was made ‘Overseer and Director of the Lanterns Lit by Night’ in 1669. In 1671 Jan and his brother Nicolaas invented a two-handled pump which is the origin of the fire engine; this gained them both in 1673 the position of ‘Supervisors of the City Fire Pumps and Fire Equipment’. These prominent and well-remunerated posts meant that Jan van der Heyden did not need to paint for money, yet his works were sought after by international and local collectors.

Signed lower right corner: 'I. V. Heyde'

Text adapted from Dutch Landscapes, London, 2010