Artikelen

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  Het straatje van Vermeer: een plaatsbepaling

  In the autumn of 2015, Frans Grijzenhout published his sensational findings regarding the likely location of Johannes Vermeer’s ‘little street’ (The Little Street). After consulting a variety of sources, including the ‘The Ledger of Dredging of the Canals in the Town of Delft’ from 1666–1667, he had reached the conclusion that the famous painting by Vermeer must have been based on the houses and two intervening passageways that in Vermeer’s day stood on Vlamingstraat, an unassuming canal in the eastern part of Delft, where numbers 40 and 42 stand today. He had also ascertained that one of Vermeer’s aunts, Ariaentgen Claes van der Minne, was the occupant of 42 Vlamingstraat at that time.
  Several authors have since produced material indicating that Vermeer painted the right-hand house in Little Street ‘from life’: the house was, it now appears, observed and reproduced in meticulous detail. The same can now be confirmed for other aspects, such as the colour used for the painted shutters and the recesses for wind hooks in the sill of the window of the righthand house.
  Philip Steadman has rightly pointed to an apparent discrepancy of four feet (c. 1.25 m.) between the details in the aforementioned ‘Ledger of the Dredging of the Canals in the Town of Delft’ and the actual spatial situation at 40 Vlamingstraat. This difference can be traced back to the fact that the gateway provided access to both front and back houses. Accordingly, the owners of both front and back houses would have been taxed on the width (four feet) of the passageway. Given what we know about the meticulous precision with which the Ledger was compiled in the case of 42 Vlamingstraat, it is inconceivable that the authors of the register for number 40 should have made a mistake.
  A spatial rendering based on an earlier perspective study of The Little Street, corresponds surprisingly well, and in some respects in detail, with the cadastral and other information we have about the complex on Vlamingstraat. Steadman’s contention that the back house must have been some twenty metres tall, is not borne out by this reconstruction: the gutter height of this house is between 7.4 and 8 metres.
  There are no valid reasons for assuming that Vermeer based The Little Street on the Oudemanhuis on Voldersgracht or on the house he and his family occupied on Oude Langendijk, as claimed respectively by Steadman and Benjamin Binstock. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the division of the plane and arrangement of space, and the architectural elements in The Little Street were based purely on an underlying grid of lines with no basis in historical reality, as suggested by Heidi de Mare. Obviously, Vermeer may well, as in the View of Delft, have resorted to artistic licence with elements or relative proportions in The Little Street, but there is more than enough justification for assuming that in making this painting he did indeed draw inspiration from the actual houses and passageways on Vlamingstraat.

  In the autumn of 2015, Frans Grijzenhout published his sensational findings regarding the likely location of Johannes Vermeer’s ‘little street’ (The Little Street). After consulting a variety of sources, including the ‘The Ledger of Dredging of the Canals in the Town of Delft’ from 1666–1667, he had reached the conclusion that the famous painting by Vermeer must have been based on the houses and two intervening passageways that in Vermeer’s day stood on Vlamingstraat, an unassuming canal in the eastern part of Delft, where numbers 40 and 42 stand today. He had also ascertained that one of Vermeer’s aunts, Ariaentgen Claes van der Minne, was the occupant of 42 Vlamingstraat at that time.
  Several authors have since produced material indicating that Vermeer painted the right-hand house in Little Street ‘from life’: the house was, it now appears, observed and reproduced in meticulous detail. The same can now be confirmed for other aspects, such as the colour...

  In the autumn of 2015, Frans Grijzenhout published his sensational findings regarding the likely location of Johannes Vermeer’s ‘little street’ (The Little Street). After consulting a variety of sources, including the ‘The Ledger of Dredging of the Canals in the Town of Delft’ from...

  Frans Grijzenhout

  1-13

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  Monumentenzorg tijdens de bezetting. Een zoektocht naar nationaalsocialistisch restaureren in Nederland 1940-1944

  Between 1940 and 1943, during the German Occupation, restoration activities continued unabated in the Netherlands. Existing studies have already shown that, in the context of a reorganization of cultural policy and legislation, the occupier attached great importance to heritage preservation. There was an attempt (ultimately fruitless) to introduce a national historic buildings act and the National Socialists interfered actively in reconstruction and restoration matters in the (exceptional) case of Middelburg. They also set up the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer and the Nederlandsche Kultuurraad with the aim of reorganizing the cultural sector along National Socialist lines. Yet there has been scarcely any research into the possible influence of this ideology on ‘ordinary’ restoration work in the Netherlands during the Occupation. The author hopes that this article will encourage further research into ‘National Socialist restoration’ in the Netherlands.
  
  The author argues that in the long term, the Gleichschaltung (in effect, Nazification) of cultural organizations like the Kultuurkamer and the Kultuurraad had hardly any impact on institutional heritage preservation or restoration practice. Nor did the National Socialist tendencies of restoration architects like Jan Gratama, C.B. van der Tak and G.A.C. Blok affect restoration practice during the Occupation. Finally, an analysis of the National Socialist cultural journal De Schouw indicates that although attention was paid to restoration issues, no specifically National Socialist restoration principles were advanced that might have served as guide for Dutch heritage preservation. Based on these sources, the author concludes that there was little sign of any clearly defined National Socialist restoration principles in the Netherlands in the 1940s, let alone any that would have been relevant to heritage preservation, and draws a parallel with the continuity of 1920s conservative restoration ideas in Germany after 1933.

  Between 1940 and 1943, during the German Occupation, restoration activities continued unabated in the Netherlands. Existing studies have already shown that, in the context of a reorganization of cultural policy and legislation, the occupier attached great importance to heritage preservation. There was an attempt (ultimately fruitless) to introduce a national historic buildings act and the National Socialists interfered actively in reconstruction and restoration matters in the (exceptional) case of Middelburg. They also set up the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer and the Nederlandsche Kultuurraad with the aim of reorganizing the cultural sector along National Socialist lines. Yet there has been scarcely any research into the possible influence of this ideology on ‘ordinary’ restoration work in the Netherlands during the Occupation. The author hopes that this article will encourage further research into ‘National Socialist restoration’ in the Netherlands.
  
  The author...

  Between 1940 and 1943, during the German Occupation, restoration activities continued unabated in the Netherlands. Existing studies have already shown that, in the context of a reorganization of cultural policy and legislation, the occupier attached great importance to heritage preservation....

  Martijn de Jong

  14-27

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  Van vóór Mansart tot na mansarde. De Nederlandse gebroken kap in internationale context

  Mansard roofs get only an occasional mention in modern Dutch works on the history of building construction. The successful spread of mansard roofs came in two waves: in the seventeenth century, with an extension into the eighteenth, and in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article deals with both periods and addresses the question of how the development of this roof type in the Netherlands compares with that in neighbouring countries, concluding with its application in private houses in Amsterdam in the second half of the nineteenth century.
  Although the country of origin cannot be definitively determined, France’s leading part in the development and spread of this roof, in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is undisputed. The earliest documented example dates from 1546, long before the birth of François Mansart (1598-1666), who popularized the roof and so gave it his name. The reasons for preferring mansard roofs to the much older saddle roofs are both functional and architectural in nature.

  In the seventeenth century, large buildings with mansard roofs started to appear in England and Scotland, possibly under French influence; in Germany, after one or two early examples, the mansard roof gained ground from 1700 onwards. From the very beginning there was a wide variety of structures and roof pitches. Interestingly, the Germans preferred a steeper upper slope than the French and their roofs were often structurally heavier than their French counterparts. The mansard roof appeared early on in the Netherlands; it is possible that the broken roof on the Amsterdam Bushuis from 1550 is the earliest example. Under the Republic, despite a few seventeenth-century specimens, the mansard roof only really started to take off in the course of the eighteenth century, notably on large and prominent buildings.
  In the nineteenth century the mansard roof was used on a large scale on urban residential buildings. Once again, France was the instigator of a wave of mansard roofs that on this occasion spread rapidly to many parts of the world. In Paris in particular this resulted in a roofscape dominated by the mansard roof. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the first rapidly and cheaply built housing blocks started to spring up in Amsterdam. In many of the urban expansion schemes such blocks were given continuous roofs with a ridge line parallel to the building line. Although a light-weight structure was used for the mansard roof in the second half of the nineteenth century, probably to save on material and costs, there were many variations in appearance.
  Characteristic features of the mansard roof gradually disappeared between 1860 and 1920, until a virtually vertical structure with a flat roof remained.

  Mansard roofs get only an occasional mention in modern Dutch works on the history of building construction. The successful spread of mansard roofs came in two waves: in the seventeenth century, with an extension into the eighteenth, and in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article deals with both periods and addresses the question of how the development of this roof type in the Netherlands compares with that in neighbouring countries, concluding with its application in private houses in Amsterdam in the second half of the nineteenth century.
  Although the country of origin cannot be definitively determined, France’s leading part in the development and spread of this roof, in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is undisputed. The earliest documented example dates from 1546, long before the birth of François Mansart (1598-1666), who popularized the roof and so gave it his name. The reasons for preferring mansard roofs to the much older saddle roofs are...

  Mansard roofs get only an occasional mention in modern Dutch works on the history of building construction. The successful spread of mansard roofs came in two waves: in the seventeenth century, with an extension into the eighteenth, and in the second half of the nineteenth century. This...

  Dik de Roon

  28-48

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