Lady with Chameleon and Sand Clock on the Damrak Painting

The building, upon which this statue is mounted, is situated at the top of the Damrak, close to Amsterdam Centraal Station, and it is perhaps one of the most unusual looking buildings in central Amsterdam. Its skyline would not be out of place in an episode of Scooby-do, it even has a small tower with a single deeply recessed round window to top-off the creepy ensemble. When looking at gothic revival buildings I have often wondered whether they were in fact designed to evoke a sense of foreboding or whether this is a more recent phenomena created through their use within the horror genre. It is this building’s magnificent stone carvings that caught my eye. The uppermost floors are adorned with beautifully carved pairs of baboons, owls and chameleons, the rationale for this unlikely menagerie may well be known to some but is by no means obvious to me. The lower floors are dispersed with an equally strange collection of human figures. Each figure is depicted holding apparently random but oddly specific items, again the significance of which is unclear. My favourite of these is this young woman holding a chameleon perched on top of a sand clock who’s meaning I can only assume is to do with ‘time’ and ‘change’. But it is in the light of the morning that we see this figure at its best. The wide street and large body of adjacent water allow the morning sun unadulterated access to the facade, and as it washes the building in its honey-coloured glow any sense of the ghoulish shrivels away and what is left is banished to the shadows.