The Brouwersgracht and the Lijnbaansgracht, Amsterdam, with the rope maker 't Fortuin and the Bullebak sluice, the Haarlemmerpoort in the distance

The warehouses on the Brouwersgracht in Amsterdam played a fundamental role of Amsterdam's commercial heritage. In the 17th Century, Amsterdam was the leading staple market and practically all traded goods passed through the city's warehouses at one stage. As trade intensified and the demand for storage space increased, a great number of warehouses were built in the city at the beginning of the century. They were nearly all built along the canals for practical reasons, as the commodities were transported by boat. The warehouses were placed next to merchant's houses, thereby combining residential and business functions. The present lot shows that these seventeenth-century structures were still intact in Ouwater's eighteenth-century Amsterdam.
In the course of time, most of the warehouses on the Brouwersgracht have been turned into apartment buildings, with glass window panes replacing the shutters. In order to maintain the original warehouse appearance, the shutters have in many cases been preserved by fastening them to the facade and leaving them permanently open.