Old Bourse and Weigh-house, ca. 1650

The building housing the town scales, erected by Hans Hamelau in 1660, occupies the foreground. Architecturally, it fitted in perfectly with the bourse sited in its right and erected by Jan Andresen of Amsterdam in the years 1578-83. It was cloth merchants who had largely met the building cost of the bourse. The forecourt of the bourse is surrounded by a row of pillars on which lions are seated. These are the same heraldic lions which are here exhibited in the centre of the staircase hall and which represent the trading companies who helped to pay for the building of the bourse.
In front stand groups, each of two figures, recognizable as merchants, watching single-axle handcarts passing by and discussing the sale of the goods transported in them. The casks and bales are opened at the weigh-house inspected, reweighed and then repacked and transported to the crane, which here does not appear in the picture. In the background right, stands the city hall; on its left the Lower Court, a half-timbered building, and next to this, just behind the roof of the bourse can be seen the tower of the Church of the Holy Ghost. On the left, next to the roof of the weigh-house appears the tower of St Nicholas' Church.

- The Coat-of-Arms of the Hamburg Bourse
- Old Bourse and Weigh-house, ca. 1650