Nieuwmarkt
Medieval city gate turned weighhouse, site of the anatomy lesson that inspired Rembrandt's most famous painting.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam traces the Waag from its start in 1488 as Amsterdam's city gate through its second life as a weighhouse once the old walls came down. It settles on one January afternoon in 1632, when a hanged man named Aris Kindt was carried inside for the surgeons' guild's single annual dissection, watched by a crowd and by a twenty-five-year-old painter newly arrived from Leiden. Look up at the turreted building's upper floor, where the guild's anatomy theater once stood.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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