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Maasricht - Stadhuis (City Hall)

City: Maastricht (Maastricht: Mestreech) is a city located in the South of the province of Limburg. "It is not possible to describe Maastricht in a few sentences. This city has it all. Culture and nature. Historic buildings and fashionable design shops. Adventure caves and characteristic towers. Vibrant events and breathtaking slopes with vines. Stroll along the exclusive boutiques in the Stokstraatkwartier or the fashion shops in the beautiful shopping mall Entre Deux. Visit the special museums, treasure rooms, art galleries and theatres. For more than 2000 years Maastricht has been a popular place to visit and to live in – description of "www.vvv-maastricht.eu”.

Building: The City Hall is located on the market site. The very least we can say about this 17th century city hall is that it is highlyimpressive. The builder was Pieter Post, a leading architect in Dutch classiscism. The first stone was laid in 1659. The whole building is a fine example of classissistic baroque. In the central hall, between the years 1667 and 1671, the artist Theodoor van der Schuer (1634-1701) painted the decorations of the ceiling. In the dome you can see the coat of arms of Maastricht carried by angels. On the cloister vault van der Schuer painted allegoric tableaux of Harmony, Strength and the victory of Righteousness over Wickedness. The tension between church and state is cleverly depicted by the three divine virtues of Faith, Hope and Love (taken from the Bible) and the picturing of Caution, Justice, Strength and Moderation (from Plato's Republic).

Object: With regard to the Divine Name, the following detailed information is very interesting to note. In 1840 Th. Schaepkens painted above the Tetragrammaton an eye, called 'the eye of justice'. He wrote on the cloister vault in Latin: 'Justitiae oculum depinxit Theodorus Van der Schuer anno Domini MDCLXX' (translation: 'the Eye of Justice was painted by Theodorus Van der Schuer in 1670')! During a restoration in 1951 they returned this section to its initial state - the original Tetragrammaton is reinstated together with the text Schaepkens originally wrote, so, you can read about the eye of justice, but you can not find it!

 

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