Jan van der Heyden, 'An Architectural Fantasy', probably 1665-70

Jan van der Heyden had an outstanding ability to make buildings seem almost photographically real (at least, that’s how we might describe it today). He worked with extraordinary delicacy and precision, taking the trouble to delineate and shade the finest details of stone and brickwork and the play of light on every tile – even in small paintings such as this. Look at the effects of weathering and the patched up repairs on the gable end of the building in the centre of the picture.

Despite it being painted in such a realistic way, this scene is almost certainly not a real one. As the title suggests, it’s an architectural fantasy composed of elements of different buildings which the artist had probably visited and sketched in Germany and Holland. Van der Heyden painted several such scenes; they were probably appreciated for their exoticism and the way they evoked a sense of an ideal city once great, now ruined.

We seem to be looking at the entrance to that city. The brickwork of the defensive walls is largely intact, but the fortified tower to the right has been overgrown by trees and shrubs and the stone pavements have been partly ripped up. There is a mix of architectural styles among the surviving buildings. The one in the centre is typical of the mid-sixteenth-century flamboyant Gothic style of Franconia, Braunschweig and the area surrounding Cologne. The building on the far left is much more Dutch in character and the ruined tower beyond is reminiscent of a windmill. The grand stone gateway has classical pilasters and Corinthian capitals (the distinct, typically broader section at the head of a pillar or column). It may have been inspired by one of the seventeenth-century gates of Amsterdam, although it does not resemble any of them closely.

Sometimes van der Heyden would use another, specialist, artist to add figures to his cityscapes. They help to create a sense of scale, lead the eye through the painting and bring the scene to life. In this case they were painted by his frequent collaborator Adriaen van de Velde, and they seem to have an added dimension – one which reflects the architectural theme of grandeur and ruin with its social equivalent. In the central scene a one-legged beggar holds out his cap to a pair of fancily dressed sightseers. Their interest in the buildings around them is obvious, but they seem oblivious to his plight.