View of the Lakenhal

1642 · Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden

landscape

The Lakenhal (Cloth Hall) was once the administrative center of the cloth trade. Laken was a heavy woolen fabric, used for decent clothing. Presently De Lakenhal is the museum of the city of Leiden which largely owes its prosperity in the Golden Age to the cloth trade.

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About the Artist

Susanna van Steenwijk

1580 – 1653

Dutch painter (born Susanna Gaspoel), wife of Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger. She is known for her paintings of architectural exteriors, one of her best-known being The Lakenhal (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden), a depiction of the cloth hall (now the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) in Leiden. The painting, commissioned from her in 1642, illustrates her simplified, almost naive technique, in which attention is given to such significant details as the sculptured plaques on the building's exterior that portray the clothmaking process so important to Leiden's prosperity. She was active in Leiden in 1642 and 1649 and also in Amsterdam in the late 1640s. She was recorded in Leiden in 1649 as a widow.

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