The Bridge of the Deer Hides, Painted by Reinier Nooms and Flattened for the Age of the Cart
The Reesluis carries the Reestraat across the Prinsengracht, on the line of the street as seen from the city centre. It is one of the crossings that ties the smart canal belt to the Jordaan behind it, and its name preserves something that has otherwise disappeared entirely from this part of Amsterdam: the smell, the trade and the working economy of the tanneries.
Etymology and Naming: The Ree, the Tanners, and the Looiersgracht
The bridge is named for the ree — the roe deer. This is not a whimsical or heraldic name. Many tanners in the southern part of the Jordaan worked in the processing of deer hides, and the street, and then the bridge, took their name from the material that passed along it.
The evidence is corroborated a few hundred metres away by the Looiersgracht — literally the tanners’ canal — which records the same industry in the same district. Read together, these names map an entire trade onto the street plan. Tanning was noxious work: it required water, it produced stench, and it was pushed to the edges of respectable districts. The Jordaan, built for artisans and labourers rather than merchants, was where it went. The elegant canal houses of the Prinsengracht face a neighbourhood that was, in the seventeenth century, distinctly industrial.
As with the Leliesluis and the Berensluis nearby, the sluis suffix denotes a stone bridge in Amsterdam usage rather than a working lock.
Structural Evolution: Berckenrode in 1625, Nooms in 1664, Hekking in 1845
A bridge has stood at this location for centuries. Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode depicted it on his map of 1625, where it lies in the extension of the Rhee Straet over the Prince Graft — the spellings themselves a small record of how the language was settling at the time the canal ring was dug.
Two artists then tell us what it looked like. A painting by Reinier Nooms, from around 1664, and a drawing by Willem Hekking, from around 1845, both show an arched bridge with three passages. Nooms — known as Zeeman, and one of the finest painters of shipping and waterside Amsterdam — was working at the height of the Golden Age; Hekking was recording the city nearly two centuries later. That the bridge kept the same three-arched form across that span of time says something about how stable Amsterdam’s infrastructure was between the seventeenth century and the industrial age.
Then it changed. By the end of the nineteenth century it had become apparent that bridges of this type were an obstacle to land traffic. The arch that let a barge pass beneath forced a climb on anything with wheels above. Across the city, arched bridges were replaced with iron plate or beam bridges, flat-decked and better suited to vehicles. The Reesluis lost its arches to the same logic that flattened bridges all along the Prinsengracht.
Urban and Social Context: The Reestraat Today
The Reestraat is one of the Negen Straatjes — the “Nine Streets” — the grid of short shopping streets that link the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht between the Raadhuisstraat and the Leidsegracht. The transformation is complete and slightly absurd: streets named for tanners and hide merchants now hold some of the most expensive small retail space in the Netherlands.
The bridge remains in active use as part of that route. In 2014 the Reesluis was given a new road surface, with a dark brick roadway and natural stone curbs — a specification chosen to sit correctly in a protected historic streetscape rather than simply to be durable.
Technical Specifications
- Bridge number: 64
- Name: Reesluis (De Reesluis)
- Type: Fixed bridge
- Spans: Prinsengracht
- Carries: Reestraat
- First recorded: Berckenrode map, 1625
- Historic form: Arched bridge with three passages (recorded c. 1664 and c. 1845)
- Rebuilt: Late nineteenth century, as an iron plate or beam bridge
- Resurfaced: 2014, dark brick roadway with natural stone curbs
Sources Consulted
- Reesluis, Nederlandstalige Wikipedia
- Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode, map of Amsterdam, 1625
- Reinier Nooms (Zeeman), painting of the bridge, c. 1664
- Willem Hekking, drawing of the bridge, c. 1845
- Stadsarchief Amsterdam Beeldbank — Prinsengracht 339–353 met de Reesluis
- Bruggen van Amsterdam — Prinsengracht hoek Reestraat
History and information
There has been a bridge at the location of Reesluis for centuries. Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode drew the bridge on his map in 1625 when the bridge is shown as extension of the Rhee Straet over the Prince Graft. Thanks to a painting by Reinier Nooms from about 1664 and a drawing by Willem Hekking from about 1845, it appears that there was a vault bridge with three passages. See picture 3.
Map and location
Like most of the centre of Amsterdam’s historic canal ring there has been a bridge here for centuries before the current Reesluis. Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode drew the bridge on his map in 1625 when the bridge is shown as an extension of the Rhee Straet over the Prince Graft. Fast forward to modern times and the bridge is still an extension of the Reestraat over the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam just the names have modernised alongside the bridge that was originally probably a vault bridge with three passages which we know thanks to a painting by Reinier Nooms from around 1664 and a drawing by Willem Hekking from about 1845. The Reestraat does not carry on through after it crosses the bridge due to the allotment pattern of the Jordaan located on the other side of the Prinsengracht not matching that of the canal belt. Many people know this bridge as the western edge of the boutique shopping district known as the nine streets or negen straatjes.
