_Jan van der Heyden_ (Dutch: 1637-1712).
Van der Heyden (or Heyde), who has been called, from the
minute neatness of his workmanship, "the Dou of architectural
painters,"[192] was one of the first Dutch artists to devote
himself to that class of subject. It was a result no doubt of
the Italianising tendency of the time. "It would seem that they
required to be initiated in this style by the views of foreign
market-places and squares with which the Italianising painters
had decorated the saloons of Amsterdam, and that in the
presence of this invasion of forums and piazzas they exclaimed,
'Have we not streets, squares, and monuments to paint?'"
(Havard: _The Dutch School_, p. 238). Of course they had; and
no works of the time are more interesting than these minute
historical records. "A striking feature in Van der Heyden is
the pencilling or dividing of the brickwork of the houses and
walls by delicate white lines; so finely are these drawn that
if it were not for the trouble, one might count the bricks
in his buildings" (Seguier). But he had the art of combining
this microscopic detail with breadth of effect. The division
of labour in art work was in his time very fully applied; and
Van der Heyden's range was very limited. He seldom turned his
hand to anything but brick houses and churches in streets or
squares, or rows along canals, or the moated granges common in
his native country. He could draw neither man nor beast, and
relied on Adrian van der Velde to enliven his street scenes
with spirited figures. Van der Heyden was born at Gorcum, and
was apprenticed to a glass-painter. He then moved to Amsterdam
and studied architectural drawing. He visited England, Belgium,
and the Rhenish Provinces. In the later part of his life he
varied the practice of art with the pursuit of mechanics, for
which he had a strong turn. He invented various improvements
in the fire-engine, introduced the use of street-lamps, and at
the time of his death was superintendent of the lighting and
director of the firemen's company at Amsterdam.
In the background is seen the then unfinished tower of Cologne
Cathedral surmounted by the old vane. This was a favourite subject of
the painter; there is another version of it in the Wallace Collection.
The figures are attributed to A. van de Velde.