Attrib. Reinier Vinkeles, Amsterdam Street Scene with Horse Sleigh – 18th-century watercolour painting

Attrib. Reinier Vinkeles Amsterdam Street Scene with Horse Sleigh

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An original 18th-century watercolour painting – Attrib. Reinier Vinkeles, Amsterdam Street Scene with Horse Sleigh.

This animated miniature street scene captures the bustling canal-side activity in 18th-century Amsterdam. Likely drawn around the 1760s by the Dutch painter and engraver Reinier Vinkeles (1741–1816), the view includes one of the distinctive horse-drawn sleighs (known as the ‘toeslede’ or ‘sleepkoets’) for which the city was known. Due to heavy taxes applied to wheeled vehicles, the wheel-less sleighs became a primary mode of urban public transit. The sleds were dragged across the cobblestone streets, with an oily cloth used to smooth the passage. The coachman walked alongside to guide the horse.

Much activity is squeezed into this small composition; finely clad gentlemen and women converse, alongside children and a dog. Large carts, carriages and mail coaches arriving in the city were too large for the narrow streets and left at designated 'cart squares', with much business then carried out on foot. In 1790 the German traveller-scientist Georg Forster visited Amsterdam and commented: 'in Amsterdam there are neighbourhoods where one can only painstakingly move through the swarming in narrow small streets. The whole day long, a continuous thunderous roaring dominates.'

In grey wash with red chalk on laid paper. The miniature sheet has been mounted onto cream card with wash- and gilt-line and window cut verso.

Reinier Vinkeles (1741–1816)

Reinier Vinkeles (1741–1816) was born in Amsterdam. He started as an apprentice with Jan Punt, joining the Amsterdam Stadstekenacademie (City Drawing School) in 1762, where he became one of the directors in 1765.

In 1765 he travelled to Brabant with Jurriaan Andriessen and Izaäk Schmidt. In 1770 he left for Paris, where he studied for a year with Jacques-Philippe Le Bas and also met the Dutch artists Hermanus Numan and Izaak Jansz de Wit. A year later, Vinkeles returned permanently to Amsterdam and began producing countless stage and book illustrations, historical prints, topographical scenes, portrait engravings, painting reproductions, and so on. That same year he was invited by Catherine the Great of Russia to become director of the Saint Petersburg Art Academy, but declined.

In 1770 Vinkeles left for Paris, where he studied with Jacques-Philippe Le Bas and met the Dutch artists Hermanus Numan and Izaak de Wit. A year later, Vinkeles returned permanently to Amsterdam and worked making prints for book illustrations, including portraits, topographical and architectural prints, copies after Dutch masters, and theatre sets. That same year he was invited by Catherine the Great of Russia to become director of the Saint Petersburg Art Academy, but declined.

Vinkeles's works are an important historical record of the city of Amsterdam. They can be found in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, among others.