Jan Pieterszoon Coen - Roode Steen, Hoorn, NL
N 52° 38.357 E 005° 03.555
31U E 639338 N 5834135
The statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen standing on the Roode Steen square in the North Holland town of Hoorn.
Waymark Code: WMXH6G
Location: Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Date Posted: 01/13/2018
Views: 14
The statue, by the hand of visual artist Ferdinand Leenhoff (1841 - 1914), has been standing there since 1893 and has been a national monument.
At the end of the 19th century, Coen was seen as a national hero. He was considered decisive, was the designer of the trade empire of the VOC in Asia and the founder of the city of Batavia. As a tribute to him, he got a statue in Hoorn, his hometown. Later, the Coentunnel was named after him. At the end of the 19th century the Netherlands, after the split-off from Belgium, needed one or more new national heroes. Jan Pieterszoon Coen became one of them. He showed that the Netherlands was great as a seafaring nation. In order to honor him it was decided to place an image of him in his place of birth. Three artists competed to perform the assignment: Alphonse Lamcomblé, Frans Stracké and Ferdinand Leenhoff, the ultimate winner. The design, in the form of a scale model, by Stracké is located in the Westfries Museum. Already at the revelation there was criticism of the image: the critics found that Coen is displayed in a theatrical attitude.
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The statue is made of bronze on a marble plint and the figure has lifesize, wearing fashion of the 17th cantury with a cannon behind his feet.
The inscription says: "dispereert niet" - do not despair