Herman Saftleven (Rotterdam 1609-1685 Utrecht)

The Weerdpoort was one of the town's four gates, located on the north side of the centre and traditionally manned by members of the guilds. The medieval gate had been rebuilt with new fortifications in the mid-16th Century by the architect Willem van Noort (d. 1566). It was demolished between 1845 and 1862 and now only the bases of the two towers survive. Saftleven’s large upright drawing of the Bok tower with the Eastern gateway on the Weerd, near the Weerdpoort, was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 23 January 2001 (now in a European private collection). A smaller view of the Weerdpoort is in the Utrechts Archief, Utrecht (Schulz, op. cit., no. 481). He also made a famous series of the churches of Utrecht which he presented to the city after the catastrophic tornado of 1674.

A later copy after this drawing, with identical staffage, probably dating from the 18th Century, is in the British Museum (Schulz, op. cit., no. 434). Salomonson (op. cit.) noted that the present drawing is doubtless the prime version, which may be dated to circa 1663.