Amsterdam - earliest photos show a picturesque city [Video]

A little on the shabby side, but oh so picturesque. The first ever photographs of Amsterdam show the city between 1845 and 1875. They are now on display at Amsterdam’s City Archives.

No cars, bicycles or houseboats. No pavements or road signs. In their place, a sense of space and stillness. Many of the city streets we know today were canals back then. Craftsmen and tradesmen populated warehouses which have long since been replaced by high-rise office buildings or hotels.

Look closely
The City Archives are currently exhibiting a great many of these photographs, all of them cityscapes of Amsterdam. The earliest photograph dates from 1845 and was taken by Eduard Isaac Asser from the window of his home. The negative has been preserved. Houses and tall chimneys can be made out. Could that be a bridge? Sometimes you need to look closely.

Twelve years later, the English amateur photographer and candle manufacturer Benjamin Brecknell Turner came to Amsterdam to take photographs. He produced large negatives which used candle wax as well as chemicals.

Turner is known to have taken sixteen photographs of Amsterdam, all of which are on display at the exhibition. The most striking thing about the prints is the mood of tranquillity they radiate: the water is smooth as glass, no people or boats to be seen. Turner’s exposure times were so long that all movement has been expunged from the images.

Brink of a new age
Photographs by Amsterdam contemporaries such as Jacob Olie, Munnich & Ermerins and Pieter Oosterhuis also feature in the exhibition. They immortalised Amsterdam just as it was about to embark on its second Golden Age, a new period of expansion and industry.

Many of the monuments and windmills in their photographs were on the verge of being torn down. The open harbour front on the IJ would soon make way for the central railway station. Newly built districts were starting to appear on the outskirts of the city.

In these photographs, Amsterdam may not be a city at the height of its prosperity but its picturesque charm is undeniable.

Radio Netherlands