Gerrit Berckheyde painted virtually nothing other than cityscapes, especially of Amsterdam, The Hague and Haarlem. Following its completion in 1665 there was a huge demand for paintings of the new town hall of Amsterdam. Berckheyde’s ‘portraits’ of the town hall were extremely popular. In this picture the painter has chosen a view over Dam Square looking northwards, with the Weigh-house on the right and the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in the background. Your attention is drawn to the town hall on the left owing to the unusual positioning of the building in the painting. The huge cast shadows give depth to the square, where there are lots of people about. The subtle placing of the foreground and background at the boundary between light and shadow links the two together.