Water pump with handles

Water was pumped up with two handles in more luxurious homes.

The first handle was connected to an under-ground well (right under the house). The second handle was connected to a rain water reservoir placed underground in the yard.

However, in the case of the Vermeer house the distance between the inner kitchen and the cistern in the back yard was so great that a pump would not have worked (information H. Zantkuijl, 2001)

Sometimes there was a third system which was connected to a rain water tank near the roof gutter. (Pijzel, Pronkpoppenhuis, 2000, p. 167.). There were disadvantages: the tank had to be below the water line of the gutter and installing a water tank and pipe system presented danger of leakage and dampness (information Zantkuijl, 2001)

Note : A water pump formed part of the house, but was not noted in the Vermeer-inventory as listed by the Delft notary public J. van Veen on February 29, 1676, in the Thins/Vermeer home located on Oude Langendijk on the corner of Molenpoort. The painter Johannes Vermeer had died there at the end of December 1675. His widow Catherina and their eleven children still lived there with her mother Maria Thins.

Illustration taken from the recently published handbook on Dutch Doll Houses by Jet Pijzel-Dommisse,Het Hollandse pronkpoppenhuis, Interieur en huishouden in de 17de en 18de eeuw, Waanders, Zwolle; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, ill.649.

This page forms part of a large encyclopedic site on Vermeer and Delft. Research by Drs. Kees Kaldenbach (email). A full presentation is on view at johannesvermeer.info.

Launched December, 2002; Last update March 2, 2017.

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