During the time of Rembrandt, there was a wooden blue bridge at a place of today's stone 'Blue Bridge' that was named after it. Rembrandt loved to come there, sit at the bridge and paint the view from it. We still have his drawing 'The Amstel viewed from the Blue Bridge' and you can see it at the Rembrandt House Museum today. He painted the river, timber poles and the sailing boats on it. Once again, those drawings are a crucial source of information today. And we know a lot about how Amsterdam looked like in the 17th Century because of them.