Gezicht op het stadhuis te Delft 1736

Leonard Schenk created this print of the Delft City Hall sometime in the first half of the 18th century, using etching and engraving. Prints like this one served an important function in the urbanizing Dutch Republic. This image creates meaning through visual codes and historical associations, in this case the architecture of the city hall and the figures populating the plaza in front of it. The seat of civic power is depicted as a modern, rational space, where commerce and legal transactions take place. The City Hall as an institution enabled all of the innovations for which the Dutch Republic became known during the Golden Age. Dutch art historians have made extensive use of archival evidence to reconstruct the political, economic, and cultural conditions in which art was made, and you too can discover the conditions that shape artistic production and reception.