Amsterdam Cherub Walk | Leidseplein Art & Architecture Tour

📍 Route: ≈ 45 min / 2 km

Welcome! This short loop leads you through the lively Leidseplein area to hunt for a playful architectural detail: putti, those chubby, lively cherubs that enliven many 19th-century façades. You’ll discover how these joyful figures survive amid cafés, shops and theatres, and you’ll decide for yourself whether they’re merely historical leftovers or still-relevant visual “memes.”

📋 What You’ll Need

• 📱 Camera or phone, a curious eye, and this guide
• 🚶‍♀️ Terrain: paved and step-free
• ☀️ Best light: early morning or late afternoon when shadows reveal the sculpted reliefs

1️⃣ Leidseplein 26 — Internationaal Theater Amsterdam

🏛️ Neo-Renaissance, 1891–1894 | J.L. & W. Springer, A.L. van Gendt

Stand on the square and scan the richly layered façade. High above, a balustrade carries the letters SPQA—Senatus Populusque Amstelodamensis, “the council and people of Amsterdam.” Two lively putti grasp are portrayed in a theatrical flourish that nods to the grisly side of drama and reminds us that the Stadsschouwburg has hosted tragedies as well as comedies since 1894.

🚶‍♂️ Direction to next stop: Face the Hirsch building diagonally across Leidseplein (just 75 m).

2️⃣ Leidseplein 29 — “Hirsch & Cie” Department Store

🏢 Um 1800 style, 1912–1913 | Adolph Jacot

This fashion palace once rivalled Parisian grands magasins. Note the colossal columns inspired by Selfridge’s in London and imagine the 38 m-high glass atrium behind them. Look up at the attic level: mischievous putti hold musical instruments advertising elegance and modernity, a witty counterpoint to today’s office tenants.

🚶‍♂️ Walk on: With the Hirsch façade on your right, cross to the small side street Korte Leidsedwarsstraat (≈100 m).

3️⃣ Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 145–147

🎨 Contemporary intervention

Here a modern mural re-imagines cherubs in street-art style. Compare their spray-paint vibrancy to the stone figures you’ve just seen.

🚶‍♂️ Head back to Leidseplein, turn left into Leidsestraat, Amsterdam’s historic shop boulevard (≈150 m).

4️⃣ Leidsestraat 59

🏛️ Neo-Renaissance, 1888 | Gerrit van Arkel

Pause at this narrow frontage, originally a luxury shop. Direct your gaze above the doorway: a single winged cherub spreads its wings over the side entrance, a lone guardian suggesting abundance and welcome. You will also notice façade mascarons, idealized female heads used as decorative keystones/corbels on late-19th-century shopfronts in Amsterdam.

🚶‍♂️ Continue down Leidsestraat to the Keizersgracht bridge; the corner building on your left is next (≈ 120 m).

5️⃣ Keizersgracht 508 — Former P.C. Hooft Cigar Warehouse

🏗️ Eclectic, 1881 | Adolf Bleys

Blue limestone, colourful brick and a neo-Gothic turret frame a bust of poet P.C. Hooft. In the window spandrels, bas-relief putti juggle tobacco leaves and pipes, cheeky mascots for Arie Blaauw’s cigar emporium. Ask yourself: do these kids glamorise smoking or simply animate the storefront?

🚶‍♂️ Cross the bridge and veer right toward Koningsplein (≈200 m).

6️⃣ Koningsplein 15

🏛️ Neo-Renaissance, 1892 | W.G. Welsing (attrib.)

Built for basket-maker L.P.H. de Ridder, this corner block once displayed wicker furniture in its curved windows. Squint and you’ll see lots of cherub heads as well as other architectural portraits that allude to the colonial past, namely a row of exoticized busts. They likely functioned as commercial imagery linking the shop to colonial/raw-material origins (rattan, bamboo from the Dutch East Indies).

🚶‍♂️ Last leg: Stroll east along Heiligeweg, a narrow shopping lane (≈250 m).

7️⃣ Heiligeweg 35

🏛️ Neo-Renaissance façade, 1890 | Gerrit van Arkel

A lavish late-19th-century shopfront mixing carved timber with polished granite piers banded in brass: under a deep bracketed canopy runs an arcade of little columns and arches, with rich foliate panels, mascarons, and relief cherubs (putti) tucked into the frieze and door surrounds. The neo-Renaissance façade (with neo-Gothic accents) was originally created for baker J.C. Heinemann’s bakery and is now protected as a national monument—note the “Anno 1890” inscriptions and the original cabinetmaker-level detailing throughout.

💭 Reflect as You Walk

• ⏰ Timeless or trendy? Why do these child-angels survive in modern retail façades?
• 🎭 Active or idle? Spot whether each group of putti is working, playing, or lounging.
• 🔄 Context shift: How does a cherub celebrating cigars or bread read to a 21st-century passer-by?
• 💪 Body positivity, 19th-century style: What might their chubbiness have signified then—and now?

👼 Feel free to slow down, sketch, photograph, or simply gaze upward; the charm of Amsterdam’s neo-Renaissance lies in details easily missed at street level. Happy cherub-hunting!