The Voetboogdoelen ("crossbowmen's shooting range") was a 16th-century building on the Singel canal in Amsterdam, at the corner of Heiligeweg near Koningsplein square, which served as headquarters and shooting range of the local schutterij (civic guard). Frans Hals painted a group portrait for the Voetboogdoelen, known as the Meagre Company .
The spot where the Voetboogdoelen once stood is now occupied by the main building of the Amsterdam University Library. The nearby street Voetboogstraat was named in reference to the Voetboogdoelen.
The Voetboogdoelen, also called Sint-Jorisdoelen after its patron saint, Saint George, was one of three doelens (shooting ranges) for the Amsterdam schutterij (civic guard). The other two shooting ranges were the Handboogdoelen and Kloveniersdoelen, located along the Singel and Kloveniersburgwal canals respectively. The Voetboogdoelen civic guard was armed with crossbows, while the Handboogdoelen civic guard wielded longbows and the Kloveniersdoelen civic guard used an early type of musket, the arquebus.
The Voetboogdoelen was established in 1458 as the shooting range for the voetboogschutterij (crossbowmen's civic guard), and the associated building was completed in the early 16th century. The shooting range extended from the Singel canal to the back side of the houses on Kalverstraat and Heiligeweg. [1] [2]
Amsterdam's militia guilds were formed in the Middle Ages to defend the city against attack. Around 1580, at the behest of William of Orange, these Medieval guilds were incorporated into a new, much larger civic guard to defend the newly Protestant city against the Spanish during the Dutch revolt which ultimately led to a full-blown war of independence, the Eighty Years' War. Officers of this new civic guard were recruited from the well-to-do of Amsterdam. [3]
In the mid-17th century, the Eighty Years' War ended and the civic guard no longer served a military purpose. The civic guard continued to exist, but membership became an honorary position and the doelens assumed a primarily social function. The wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Dutch Golden Age Amsterdam came together in the doelens to eat, drink and smoke. In 1650 the city gave permission for houses to be built on the former shooting ranges of the Voet- and Handboogdoelen. For these houses, two new streets were constructed: the Voetboogstraat and Handboogstraat. [1]
Banquets were held in the Voetboogdoelen in 1653 and 1654 to celebrate the founding of the Amsterdam artists' guild, the Guild of Saint Luke. At the first of these feasts, on 20 October 1653, Joost van den Vondel was crowned with a laurel wreath to celebrate his career as a poet. [4]
From 1674, the Voetboogdoelen was rented out to the new Dutch West India Company — founded after the original company went bankrupt — to serve as its headquarters. From then on, the building was known as the West-Indisch Binnenhuis (Inner West India House) or simply West-Indisch Huis (West India House). The building was also used by the Society of Suriname from its founding in 1683 until the company was nationalized in 1795. During the French period, the Voetboogdoelen served as barracks. In 1816 the building was demolished to make way for the Roman Catholic St. Catherine's Church, consecrated in 1820. In 1939, the church was itself demolished. [5] [6]
This left the grounds unoccupied until the 1960s, when the main building of the Amsterdam University Library was built on the spot. The building, designed by architect Jan Leupen and others, has been named in the media as one of the ugliest of Amsterdam. [7]
Members of the civic guard, drawn from the well-to-do of Amsterdam, frequently commissioned group portraits of themselves, which were hung in the doelens. The earliest known example of these so-called schuttersstukken is a 1529 triptych by Dirck Jacobsz. for the Kloveniersdoelen, now in the Amsterdam Museum. [8] Group portraits for the Voetboogdoelen were commissioned from as early as the 1530s.
Frans Hals was commissioned in 1633 to paint a group portrait for the Voetboogdoelen, The Meagre Company . However, Hals took years to complete it and, when the painting was still unfinished in 1636, Pieter Codde was contracted to complete it. Now on display in the Rijksmuseum, The Meagre Company is one of Hals' best-known works and was an important inspiration for Vincent van Gogh. [9] [10]
Two group portraits were commissioned for the Oude Sael (Old Hall) of the Voetboogdoelen to commemorate the end of the Eighty Years' War with the Peace of Münster in 1648. The best-known of these two paintings is the Banquet at the Crossbowmen’s Guild in Celebration of the Treaty of Münster by Bartholomeus van der Helst. This painting is now in the Rijksmuseum. The painting was probably trimmed; on copies (such as a 1779 print by Jacob Cats), the back wall and window are much higher, and some of the ceiling is even visible. In the painting, some of the buildings on the opposite side of the Singel canal can be seen through the window, including a building at Singel 460 designed and built by Philip Vingboons (nowadays the Odeon club and restaurant). [11] The second group portrait commissioned for the Old Hall of the Voetboogdoelen was The company of Captain Joan Huydecoper by Govert Flinck. The painting is now in the Amsterdam Museum.
From about 1683, the group portraits were removed from the doelens, beginning with those in the former Voetboogdoelen. Most were hung in Amsterdam's city hall on Dam Square (now the Royal Palace of Amsterdam), others sold at auction. Many of these paintings, including Rembrandt's The Night Watch (which hung in the Kloveniersdoelen), were significantly trimmed to fit their new home. The full-size versions are known only through copies made of the original paintings, such as the watercolor copies contained in the Egerton Manuscript, which is now in the British Library. Cornelis Ketel's 1588 group painting of a company of the Voetboogdoelen civic guard, The Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz Rosecrans and Lieutenant Pauw (now in the Rijksmuseum) was cropped on all sides, with as much as 1.27 meters thought to have been cut off on the right-hand side. [12] [13]
The Voetboogdoelen was one of three doelens (shooting ranges) for the Amsterdam civic guard, alongside the Handboogdoelen and Kloveniersdoelen, which were located along Singel and Kloveniersburgwal canal respectively. Of the three, only the Handboogdoelen survives.
Other Dutch towns, including The Hague, Leiden and 's-Hertogenbosch, also had a Voetboogdoelen or Sint-Jorisdoelen.
The original headquarters of the Dutch West India Company was the West-Indisch Huis (West India House, 1617), also in Amsterdam. The West-Indisch Pakhuis (West India Warehouse, 1642) in Amsterdam served as headquarters from 1647 until the Voetboogdoelen took over this function in 1674.
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw.
Ludolf Bakhuizen was a German-born Dutch painter, draughtsman, calligrapher and printmaker. He was the leading Dutch painter of maritime subjects after Willem van de Velde the Elder and Younger left for England in 1672. He also painted portraits of his family and circle of friends.
Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch painter. Considered to be one of the leading portrait painters of the Dutch Golden Age, his elegant portraits gained him the patronage of Amsterdam's elite as well as the Stadtholder's circle. Besides portraits, van der Helst painted a few genre pictures as well as some biblical scenes and mythological subjects.
Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem was a Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman, one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists in the Netherlands, and an important forerunner of Frans Hals as a portraitist.
Dirck Jacobsz (1496–1567) was a Dutch Renaissance painter. His exact birthplace is unknown, but it was somewhere near Amsterdam.
Schutterij refers to a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands, intended to protect the town or city from attack and act in case of revolt or fire. Their training grounds were often on open spaces within the city, near the city walls, but, when the weather did not allow, inside a church. They are mostly grouped according to their district and to the weapon that they used: bow, crossbow or gun. Together, its members are called a Schuttersgilde, which could be roughly translated as a "shooter's guild". It is now a title applied to ceremonial shooting clubs and to the country's Olympic rifle team.
Pieter Jacobsz Codde was a Dutch painter of genre works, guardroom scenes and portraits.
Cornelis or Cornelius Ketel was a Dutch Mannerist painter, active in Elizabethan London from 1573 to 1581, and in Amsterdam till his death. Ketel, known essentially as a portrait-painter, was also a poet and orator, and from 1595 a sculptor as well.
Cornelis Anthonisz., Anthonisz. also spelled Anthonissen or Teunissen, was a Dutch painter, engraver, and mapmaker.
Witsen is a patrician family of Amsterdam. Its most notable member was the politician and scholar Nicolaes Witsen, but many other members of the family also held leading roles in trade and politics from the Dutch Golden Age up until the French occupation of the Netherlands in the late 18th century.
Anthonie Palamedesz., also Antonie Palamedesz, birth name Antonius Stevens, was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He is in particular known for his merry company paintings depicting elegant figures engaged in play, music and conversation as well as guardroom scenes showing soldiers in guardrooms. Like many Dutch painters of his time, he painted portraits and still lifes, including vanitas still lifes. He further painted the staffage in a few views of the interior of churches. He played a major role in the development of genre painting in Delft in the mid 17th century.
The Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1630 refers to the schutterstuk painted by Hendrik Gerritsz Pot for the Cluveniers, St. Adrian, or St. Hadrian civic guard of Haarlem, and today is considered one of the main attractions of the Frans Hals Museum there.
The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch artist Frans Hals, painted from 1626 - 1627, during the Dutch Golden Age. Today, the piece is considered one of the main attractions of the Frans Hals Museum.
Andries van Hoorn, or van der Horn, was a Dutch mayor of Haarlem, known best today for his portraits by Frans Hals.
The Meagre Company, or The Company of Captain Reinier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw, refers to the only militia group portrait, or schutterstuk, painted by Frans Hals outside of Haarlem. Today the painting is in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum, where it is considered one of its main attractions of the Honor Gallery. Hals was unhappy about commuting to Amsterdam to work on the painting and, unlike his previous group portraits, was unable to deliver it on time. The sitters contracted Pieter Codde to finish the work.
The Haarlem schutterij refers to a collective name for the voluntary civic guard of Haarlem, from medieval times up to the Batavian Revolution in 1794, when the guilds of Haarlem were disbanded.
The Kloveniersdoelen was a complex of buildings in Amsterdam which served as headquarters and shooting range for the local schutterij. The companies of kloveniers were armed with an early type of musket known as an arquebus, known in Dutch as a bus, haakbus or klover, hence the name kloveniers.
The Handboogdoelen is a building on the Singel canal in Amsterdam, near Koningsplein square. It dates back to the early 16th century and originally served as headquarters and shooting range of the local schutterij. Most of the current building at Singel 421 dates to the 18th century and is part of the main complex of the Amsterdam University Library. The Doelenzaal hall on the ground floor of the building is used for lectures, meetings, receptions and doctoral dissertations. The building has rijksmonument status.
Cornelis Bicker van Swieten, heer (lord) van Swieten, was an Amsterdam regent of the Dutch Republic during the Golden Age. He traded in sugar, was a governor of the Dutch West India Company and director of the Wisselbank. He was schepen, hoogheemraad of the Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland and a counsellor of the States of Holland and West Friesland at The Hague.
Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster (1648) is a group portrait oil painting by the Dutch painter Bartholomeus van der Helst. It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is considered one of the highlights of the Amsterdam Museum, though it is generally on show in the Rijksmuseum.