De regenten van het Oude Mannen- en Vrouwengasthuis

The governors met regularly to deal with the general administration of the home. Everything had to be checked and plans had to be made for fund raising. In 1600 and 1614 a lottery was organized for the benefit of the home. Two books in the bookcase at the left are a reference to this. The third book bears the title ‘Huysboeck’ (household affairs). Many a 17th-century visitor to Amsterdam wrote with amazement of the ‘palaces’ built for charitable ends, for these houses often had splendid interior decoration. The earliest known portraits of Amsterdam governors were made by Cornelis van der Voort. His compositions, with the figures all seated at a long table or perhaps with some sitting while others stood, were imitated for the next two hundred years.

De regenten van het Oude Mannen- en Vrouwengasthuis

The governors met regularly to deal with the general administration of the home. Everything had to be checked and plans had to be made for fund raising. In 1600 and 1614 a lottery was organized for the benefit of the home. Two books in the bookcase at the left are a reference to this. The third book bears the title ‘Huysboeck’ (household affairs). Many a 17th-century visitor to Amsterdam wrote with amazement of the ‘palaces’ built for charitable ends, for these houses often had splendid interior decoration. The earliest known portraits of Amsterdam governors were made by Cornelis van der Voort. His compositions, with the figures all seated at a long table or perhaps with some sitting while others stood, were imitated for the next two hundred years.