Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The work in De Waag is a consummate expression of classical gauged brick-
work. The rubbed smooth brickwork of orange/red rubbing bricks are laid in
regular Flemish or English bond with putty lime: silver sand joints of 1-2mm
in thickness. The majority of the masterpieces date mainly from the second
quarter of the seventeenth century up to the early eighteenth century (Van der
Horst, 1998), and are very similar to the best of post-Restoration English gauged
brickwork in all respects. Bonded perfectly, these masterpieces are undoubt-
edly the work of bricklayers rather than masons and the influence on English
gauged work is without dispute.
Figure 43
Hood of a seventeenth-
century gauged niche
masterpiece, De
Waag, Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
The premier example to all of this brick craftsmanship is just inside the door
of the payment room of the guild. A beautiful niche, with a carved scallop-
shelled boss, and framed with a cut-moulded architrave, is surmounted by
a richly decorated pediment carried at either end by two turned, or 'Solomonic',
columns on the capitals of which is carved the inscription 'Anno 1660' (Fig. 44).
Thus confirming the high level of perfection that such fine gauged work had
already reached in the Netherlands before the Great Fire of London of 1666.
Originally above the niche was a poem, signed by guild brother, Hendrick
Wourtesz, which began:
Here is the tough [hard work] and proof of the laudable art of building…
(Kupershoek, 1997, 28).
Kupershoek (1997, 28) continues that at the entrance to the guild room, off of
the spiral staircase, was once another poem that read:
But only by diligence and judgement, a pupil goes the stairs, of the seeked mas-
tership, to his own honour and benefit.
