Claes Claesz Hofje: A Mennonite Merchant from Oslo
Why is it significant?
Step through the gateway into the first courtyard and listen. With luck you may hear a piano, a violin or a cello practising scales behind one of the small windows.
Key Facts
| Place | Claes Claesz Hofje: A Mennonite Merchant from Oslo |
|---|---|
| Address | Eerste Egelantiersdwarsstraat 3, 1015 SC Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.37730, 4.88430 |
| Part of Walk | Behind the Green Doors: Hidden Hofjes and Market Days of the Jordaan, Amsterdam |
| Generated | Generated |
Step through the gateway into the first courtyard and listen. With luck you may hear a piano, a violin or a cello practising scales behind one of the small windows. Then look around at the brick walls, the green doors and the tiny gardens, and you are in one of the oldest and loveliest hofjes in Amsterdam, the Claes Claesz Hofje.
Its founder was Claes Claesz Anslo, a cloth merchant who came from Norway. Anslo is simply the old name of Oslo, the town his family came from, worn like a badge. In 1616 he founded this almshouse for the poor and elderly, and over the centuries it grew into a little labyrinth of courtyards joined by passages, with houses facing several different streets.
Claes was a Mennonite, a member of a peaceful Protestant movement that rejected weapons, refused to swear oaths and baptised only adults who chose the faith. In much of Europe that got you persecuted. In Amsterdam it got you rich, if you were good at cloth. And here is the surprise: a member of the same family, Cornelis Claesz Anslo, became a famous Mennonite preacher, and in 1641 Rembrandt painted him with his wife, the preacher in mid-sentence, his hand raised over an open Bible. That painting hangs today in Berlin.
Look out, too, for the stones set into the walls around the complex. Before house numbers, Amsterdam houses were known by their gable stones, little carved and painted pictures that served as an address, a ship, a bird, a trade, a pun on the owner's name. Old Amsterdammers gave directions by them, and the Jordaan is still full of these little signboards in stone.
In the twentieth century the hofje was rescued by a society that restores historic houses, and today its homes are rented mostly to students, many of them young musicians. Old ladies once prayed here, and now young people practise Bach. Somehow the place is still devout. Now cross the Egelantiersgracht and head south through a cross street to the Bloemgracht, the grandest canal of the Jordaan.