Sillemans is among the lesser-documented specialists in pen-and-ink topographical views working in Amsterdam in the mid-seventeenth century, a period when the city’s expansion by way of its concentric canal belt was under active construction. The River Ij was the city’s commercial artery, the harbor from which the Dutch East India Company’s ships departed and returned. In this meticulously drawn work of pen and ink on copper (one of only two such penschilderijen known to have been made on this support), Sillemans has taken a view looking from the south across the River Ij at Amsterdam. A stiff breeze is blowing, whipping up the foreground water and forming whitecaps on the crests of the waves. A pleasure yacht, moored to some wooden pilings, occupies the left foreground, while a rowing boat appears on the right. A fluit (fluitschepen) – a large ocean-going trading ship – under sail moves off to the right, while further off, various vessels are manoeuvring in the narrow channel of water. Just visible in the centre background are the ghostly outlines of the gallows-field on the spit of land on the north side of the river, known as The Volewijck, where public executions were carried out.
