Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
are decorated with more than eighty masterpieces of very accurate and artistic
seventeenth-century gauged brickwork around several walls, including the spir-
alled entrance (Fig. 42).
Figure 42
Early seventeenth-
century gauged work
following the spiralled
staircase to the former
'Metselaarsgilder-
kamer', De Waag,
St Anthonispoort,
Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
Amongst these masterpieces are niches (Fig. 43), oblique elliptical bullseye
windows, semi-circular arched windows and several shapes of ornate blind ash-
lared panels; a number of which can also be seen on the outside of the build-
ing. In respect of the importance of these masterpieces, no one could join the
guild as De Vries (2006, 3250) states:
…unless he was a citizen and had prepared a masterpiece, for which he paid 13
guilders plus additional costs, among other things for inspection of the master-
piece and a 'certificate' in the form of the accompanying medallion and the testi-
monial, 63.13 guilders in all.
Kupershoek (1997, 28) describes the brickwork masterpieces so eloquently:
The walls of the small room are full of proofs of very handsome bricklayer's work,
every brick is sharpened and polished. Nothing was too difficult for these brick-
layers; the brickwork frames, blind niches and niches are either broadened or
narrowed, all made to different angles. Besides their craftsmanship, they showed
their knowledge about perspective. All the brick frames form a depth that
doesn't' really exist.
By 1691, due to misunderstandings and dispute, strict times were laid down
for the execution of the masterpieces which varied from fourteen days for
the plumbers up to a maximum of six weeks which was for the bricklayers
(De Vries, 2006, 3250).
