# The Four Continents Paying Homage to Amsterdam [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [QUELLINUS, Artus I]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Stone ## Commentary The Four Continents Paying Homage to Amsterdam c. 1650 Stone Town Hall, Amsterdam In 1650, Quellinus moved to Amsterdam, where for fourteen years he directed the vast project of providing sculptural decoration for the new Town Hall, built and decorated to the <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/c/campen/amsterd2.html'\)" href="/html/c/campen/amsterd2.html">plans of Jacob van Campen.</a> The intention was that the enormous town hall by its monumental appearance and its ingenious programme of decoration would express the commercial power and wealth of Amsterdam. Quellinus's sculpture was most explicitly utilized in the service of political propaganda in the giant reliefs with which the two great pediments of the building were decorated. On the western pediment is the Maid of Amsterdam with the sources of her prosperity, the Rivers Amstel and IJ, to which the four continents pay homage. At the top is Atlas lifting the world. The enormous bronze statues crowning the corners of the pediment are female personifications of the virtues on which the ethical conduct of the city government was based. ## Related artworks - [Andries de Graeff]() - [Choir Stalls]() - [Johann de Witt]() - [Louis of Bavaria]() - [Luis de Benavides]() - [Madonna Ara Coeli]() - [Mater Dolorosa]() - [Mercury]() - [Pietà]() - [Portrait of Johan de Witt]() - [Reliefs in the Tribunal]() - [Sea Gods Paying Homage to Amsterdam]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()