Art by Jan van der Heyden
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Jan van der Heyden (March 5, 1637, Gorinchem – March 28, 1712, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and inventor who significantly contributed to contemporary firefighting. He improved the firehose (1672, with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydraulic engineer), invented by Johann Hautsch, modified the manual fire engines, organised the first European volunteer fire brigade (1685) and wrote and illustrated the first firefighting manual (Brandspuiten-boek). A comprehensive street lighting scheme for Amsterdam, which lasted from 1669 until 1840, designed and implemented by Heiden, was adopted as a model by many other towns in the Netherlands and abroad.