Black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 177 x 250 mm. Verso: An insignificant sketch of a head, pen and brown ink. Grey areas (traces of etching ground?). Framing lines along the left and top, and a thinner line at the bottom, pen and brown ink. Vertical fold on the right. Traced for transfer. Watermark: Coat of arms (close to Heawood 604: Holland 1627). Chain lines: 25 mm. Numbered in the lower right corner, in pen and brown ink, 2027 (Sparre), 119 (struck out) and 64 (struck out). Mark of the Royal Collection (Lugt 1638).

This scene is a preparatory drawing for the foreground on the extreme right of the large view of Amsterdam from the north, published by Visscher in 1611. The tracing is very sketchy, more like a preliminary sketch done with a metal point than a tracing. In spite of this, Visscher has followed the drawing quite closely. At the left side there is a thin line in brown ink, 14 mm from the margin. It cuts through the figure on the extreme left, which is sketched with less detail to the left of the line.

The panorama is etched on four plates. The second and third of them, forming the central part, are the reworked engraving in two plates by Pieter Bast from 1599, to which Visscher added a plate on each side. The present drawing corresponds, in reverse, to the fourth plate. It is exactly the width of the plate (251 mm). The pen line drawn through the figure on the left seems to indicate that a slightly narrower plate was considered. The staff with a rope and the stern of a small vessel drawn at the right edge of the drawing are at the left edge of the plate, and are continued from the adjoining plate. The view of the city is only indicated by a faint chalk line a few centimetres above the heads of the figures. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 461]