View of the Kolkje Canal, Amsterdam

Foreign Pictorialists considered ‘the Netherlands’ an exciting subject. With its windmills and waterways the landscape afforded endless possibilities. The reflective water of the canals in the cities also featured regularly in the work of photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, James Craig Annan, and Alvin Langdon Coburn. The Frenchman Robert Demachy ventured into the Kolkje, a narrow canal in Amsterdam that was a famous tourist attraction already in the 19th century.