Maps of Delft

Anyone familiar with Vermeer’s oeuvre is certainly aware of the maps which populate the background walls of his interior compositions. The presumed meanings of these maps has been amply debated by Vermeer scholars. Even though some confusion remains as to the precise their meaning within the iconographical structure of Vermeer's compositions, the provenance of each map has been accurately established by the scholar James A. Welu. Not all are aware that maps had originally been included and subsequently eliminated from two other works as well: The Milkmaid and the Woman with a Pearl Necklace. Vermeer was not alone in his fixation for maps. Maps can be seen in a conspicuous number of Dutch genre paintings. Maps were something very Dutch.

In her seminal study of Dutch realism, The Art of Describing, art historian Svetlana Alpers remarked on the mapping impulse as a peculiar characteristic of Dutch scientific and visual culture. Mapmaking and picture-making went hand in hand. According to Alpers, in no other time and place did mapping and picturing have such a strong coincidence as in 17th c. Holland. Map makers and map publishers were referred to as "world describers." The Dutch painter and map maker had in common the will to capture a great range of knowledge and information about the world on a flat surface.

Maps were made for practical purposes, for prestige and, more banally, for home decoration. In Vermeer's day, wall maps were a cheap way of embellishing bare walls and obviously struck a positive note for the Dutch whose mercantile exuberance had permitted their miniscule country to dominate great part of world trade. They were generally glued on heavy clothe and then hung with the aid of rods onto which were fixed balls which distanced their fragile surfaces from the humid walls. The demand for decorative maps was so insistent that map publishers had begun to reissue older, and in some cases, outdated ones. 17th-c. catalogues employed the "suitable for framing" sales pitch adding that some could be customized with decorative additions. Some were hand painted. An extremely limited number of maps have survived in respects to the amount described in inventories, catalogues and other sources. It is through Dutch painting that much of their beauty is known. Luckily, a few extraordinarily beautiful maps of Delft have survived.

Most Vermeer enthusiasts are familiar with the famous Kaart Figuratief and/or Joan Blaeu's Map of Delft. They describe the town so precisely that they are frequently used to locate those places in Delft which are of interest to the study of the artist's life (see map below) and can be used today for a walk around Delft's historic center. But while Vermeer represented various maps of the Netherlands and one of Europe, he never once represented a map of his birthplace. In the case of the Kaart Figuratief, we should remember that it rolled off the presses in 1678, three years after the artist's death. Vermeer’s pride in his home town is evident in the famous View of Delft, perhaps the most important townscape in European easel painting.

Dirck Van Bleyswyck's Beschryvinge der Stadt Delft & the Kaart Figuratief

One of the great expressions of Delft's civic pride was the publication (first volume 1667) of Dirck van Bleyswyck's  Beschryvinge der Stadt Delft,  "The Description of Delft," an invaluable 900 page history of the city and one of the most ambitious 17th c. projects of its kind. Van Bleyswijck (1639-1681) was born into a prominent family and was sheriff, orphan master and burgomaster as well. He is known to have traveled extensively throughout the 17 Provinces.

Van Bleyswijck must have been an exceptionally resourceful Dutchman full of love and pride for Delft. At the time the Beschryvinge der Stadt Delft was first published he was only seventeen years old. The idea for the book was born in a peculiar circumstance. Although Van Bleyswijck was forced by an illness to abandon plans for a tour of the Netherlands, France and Italy, he decided to take advantage of his bed-ridden condition to explore the history of his hometown. The book is the history of the city with descriptions of the greatest accomplishments of its citizens and a description of Delft’s important monuments. Van Bleyswijck noted with disappointment that his own generation of Delt citizens was more fascinated by the foreign imports and modes rather than by their own cultural heritage.

Having noted Van Bleyswijck’s ingenuity the town council of Delft commissioned a celebratory map called the Kaart Figuratief and put him in charge of the impressive task. The undertaking was sponsored chiefly by the Delft elite burger class, who dominated all aspects of civic life and were eager to extend their influence and enhance their own prestige.

The Kaart Figuratief is undoubtedly the most important map of Delft, a "true topographical monument (B. van 't Hoff)."¹  However, it is not a map in the modern sense, rather, it is a hybrid of a map, an aerial photograph and theatre stage in which the whole town of Delft is seen from a bird's-eye view with buildings shown in isometric perspective. The drawing's three-dimensional relief offers an unparalleled sensation of a real brick-and-mortar town in miniature and it is difficult not to be moved by it. Beautiful as the Kaart Figuratief may be, it still has one drawback for the modern historian: it depicts a smaller number of buildings on any given city block than there actually were.² Thus, exact measurements and identifications of specific building is not always possible.It also does not show the improvised wood structures in which the poor lived in the areas immediately surrounding the walled town.

The Kaart Figuratief was very likely inspired by a map of the Maas River Delta published by Jacob Quack in 1665 in Rotterdam, in which the port city was prominently displayed while Delft clearly had a secondary role in the map’s scheme. The Kaart Figuratief was not made only to decorate Delft public buildings, but was sent to foreign dignitaries and authorities of other Dutch cities.

The Kaart Figuratief consists, apart from the detailed map of Delft, of a large profile of the city, a smaller profile of Delfshaven, 24 small city-views and prints of small maps of the "stadsheerlijkheden" (a sort of suburb) as well as four emblems of the city’s principle burgomasters and a short description of the city. Its borders were decorated with  coats of arms, Cupids, fishes, storks (see left), human figures (such as those of the claymixers and clothe-cutters, both important occupations for Delft's economy) symbolic figures and a 14-line poem by Constantijn Huygens, a sort of complete Renaissance man of the Untied Provinces. By representing Delfshaven (at that time a Delft municipality), Delft cast itself as an important seaport and boasted the headquarters of the Hoogheemraadschap van Delftland, the commission that exercised power over all of the vital waterway system of the region. In the lower corner right of the map male figures lie among a heap of the city’s most important products: faience and clothe.

With these separately printed features it was possible to compose a large monumental wall map or to arrange it in three combinations for smaller prints. Detailed instructions for the arrangements ("Onderrechtung" resp. "Advertentie") by Van Bleyswijck were published.

Naturally, the greater part of the  "Kaart" conforms with the older map of Blaeu. But much work had to be done just the same to bring the map up to date. Van Bleyswijck reports that in 1676 the surveyor ("landmeter") Jacob Spoors, together with a number of assistants made a detailed surveying of the city and were paid 174 guilders by the magistrate. The most significant novelty in Delft topography was the construction of the Paardenmarkt upon the site of the area demolished by the Delft explosion of the gunpowder-magazine in 1654.

Various historical documents (bills, receipts etc.) from the years 1675-1677 are housed in the Delft Municipal Archive which reveal the process of the Kaart’s production. The total amount of the costs was 2,666 guilders 15 stuiver. A medium-sized house in those times might cost from 800 to 1,000 guilders.

Johannes de Ram engraved the plan of Delft while Coenraet Decker was responsible for engraving all the pictorial elements which included many propagandistic embellishments.  A number of craftsmen and draughtsmen were employed. Payments were made to the accomplished painter Johann Verkolje for the drawings of Delfshaven in profile, the large, pnoramic profile of Delft, and the two churches with their towers. Pieter van Asch (an excellent still-life painter)  made two drawings of the Overschie and Voorburg. Andries Hoogeboom was the typesetter, Andries Smith the printer and Jacobus Robijn hand-colored the maps. Moreover, the original maps were adorned with elaborate gilt frames. Steven Swart, a woodcarver, and, Joris Arentszm, a painter and gilder, made eleven elaborate frames with carefully orchestrated symbolic images all determinde by the erudite Van Bleyswijck. For example, the sun which dominates the top of the frame, which now graces one of the frames in the Delft Prinsenhof, is explained in Latin: Sol iusteae illustra nos (The sun of justice shines on us).

Van Bleyswijck published in the "Beyvoegselen" (attachments) to the second volume of his Beschryvinge a "Sleutel ofte uytlegginge van de Sinne-beelden..." (key for the interpretation of the allegories). This lead to the assumption that the second volume of Bleyswijck's Beschryvinge van Delft had been published soon after 1677. For the printing of this new volume Van Bleyswijck made use of a number of plates intended for the Kaart Figuratief (mainly the city views), to save money for the production of new plates. Later, in 1729, the Delft citizen Reinier Boitet⁴ used many of the plates from the Kaart Figuratief for his own Beschryving der stad Delft (little more than Van Bleyswijck's work with some corrections and attachments).

Kaart Figuratief (1675-1678) in Detail

dimensions: 81,5 (82,5) x 124,5 (125,5) cm. Printed with four copper plates (the plates are housed in the Stedelijk Museum "Het Prinsenhof". It is still possible to make new prints of the Kaart Figuratief with these plates.)

justification: East-Nord-East above.

center top:  two emblems of Delft.

top left-hand: depiction of the  "College/VAN DE GROOTE / VISCHERIJE / VAN / HOLLANT/ende/WESTVRIESLANT"  with emblems of Delft, Schiedam, Enkhuizen, Brielle and Rotterdam.

right-side top: small map of the "HOOGH HEEMRAEDSCHAP VAN DELFLANDT" (Water and Dyke Board) with above the emblem of Delfland and beneath the pictures of the "Huis Honselaersdijk" and Rijswijk stylistic emblems of the "13 HOOFT AMBACHTEN" resp. 13 SLUYSEN VAN DELFLANT" (watergates) surrounding the picture.

right-side below: "OP D'AFBEELDINGE DER STADT DELFT" / Door bevel van de Hoogh-Achtbare Heeren / Burgemeesteren / der selve uytgegeven"  (Picture of the city of Delft / published by the order of the city's honorable Mayors); beneath a poem in 14 lines, signed "CONSTANTER" (= Constantijn Huygens sen.). Beneath: "met Privilegie voor 15 Iaren". Surrounded by depictions of ceramic-making. 

left-side below: 4-part compass-rose, measure: 13 cm = 50 "Delflandsche ofte/Rynlandsche Roeden" (rod = old square measure)

bottom: "Amsterdam by Pieter Smith", left below: "I. De Ram Fecit".

Map of Delft by Joan Blaeu

The Blaeu's map accurately follows that of Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (Professor in Leiden), published in 1632 in Theatrum sive Hollandiae Comitatis by Hendrik Hondius in Amsterdam.

justification: East-Nord-East above.

dimensions: 37,5 x 49 cm.

above center : a cartouche, written in thin letters: "Delf."

top right: an empty vignette

Blaeu converted the map by Boxhorn into folio-format to be included in his Stedenatlas van de Verenigde en van de Koninklijke (Zuidelijke) Nederlanden (two volumes, 1649). A comparison with the proof copy the revised map presents the following changes:

1. The vignette in the middle was given another inscription.

2. The Delft emblem on the top left of the proof copy was moved to the right side. The left-hand one became an emblem of Holland.

3. The index of the proof cop , originall intended as a large vignette on the top right was moved to the below left..

4. The Doelenstraat was lengthened, with a new bridge over a new canal (now Raam, north-side from Paardenmarkt).

5. A windmill at the corner of two canals (present Achterom and Zuiderstraat), by Boxhorn and in the proof copy (Blaeu) depicted with blades, had become a trunk without blades.

The "proefdru" designed after Boxhorn necessitated s few topographical changes published to be publiushed in Joan Blaeu's Stedenatlas.

Information about the map of Delft in the Stedenatlas van de Nederlanden (City Atlas of the Netherlands) by Joan Blaeu (1649):

dimensions: 37,5 x 49 cm.

justification: East-Nord-East above.

top center: vignette "DELFI BATAVORUM / vernacule / DELFT"

top left: emblem of Holland.

top right: emblem of Delft.

left-hand vignette: index 1-37 in 5 columns (37 streets and monuments named expressly in the map)

Delft After the Great Fire of 1536

The map above was (unusually) painted on canvas and represents Delft after the great Fire of 1536. Since the map is not executed on panel it is unlikely that it had been made in the time soon after the Great Fire. More likely, it is a  copy of the original now lost. Nothing is known about the maker or the reasons for its creation.

The sections of the city which were destroyed by the fire are painted in lighter colour than those which had remained intact. The inscription on the surrounding dark border reads: "Viertien Kercken veel menschen ende huusen al sonder ghetal syn in Delft ghebrant  dat Raethuys ende die vleis hal   1536" (Fourteen churches, numerous people and countless houses are burnt in Delft  the Town Hall and the Meat Hall 1536").

dimensions: 92 x 160 cm; with strip around the map: 116 x 183 cm.  West-South-West above.

A List of Historic Maps of Delft

1. map of Delft after the Great Fire of 1536.

2. map by Jacob van Deventer, c. 1550.

3. map in the Stedenboek by Braun and Hogenberg , first "state" (1581).

4. map in the Stedenboek by Braun and Hogenberg , second "state" (1581)
and in the Stedenatlas by Janssonius (1657).

5. map in Plantijn's edition of Ludovico Guicciardini's Beschrijving der Nederlanden (1581, 1582 and 1588).

6. small map ("kaartje") in Valegio's Raccolta (c. 1600).

7. map in the northern Netherlands folio-edition of Guicciardini's Beschrijving der Nederlanden (1609-1648).

8. drawing of a map in a manuscript housed in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag. (single sheet)

9. map in Boxhorn's Theater van Holland (1632 and 1634).

10. small map of ?? (unknown origin), housed in the Municipal Archive Delft.

11. small map in the 12o-editions of Guicciardini (1634-1660).

12. small map in Parival's Delices de la Hollande (1651 and later).

13. proof copy of Joan Blaeu's map of Delft (before 1649).

14. map in the Stedenatlas van de Nederlanden by Joan Blaeu (1649)

15. map in Matthäus Merian's Topographia Germaniae Inferioris (1655 and later).

16. map in the Stedenatlas by Janssonius (1657), by Erven Janssonius van Waesberge (1682)