It is Sunday morning, October 4th, 1671, when the Amsterdam minister Nicolaus de la Planque leaves home early and makes his way through the shipyards of the eastern islands. He is on his way to the newly built Oosterkerk on the Kleine Wittenburgerstraat to deliver the consecration sermon. De la Planque is 45 years old when, as the church’s first minister, he climbs the steps of the square pulpit. The pulpit on which he stands is unique in Amsterdam: a freestanding square structure with three decorated wooden panels depicting the symbols of faith (a Bible), hope (an anchor), and love (a heart).

Among the island residents who attend the Oosterkerk, there are plenty of woodworkers. They are also known as “bijltjes” (“little axes”), a reference to the main tool of the ship carpenters whose workshops are located around the church and the adjacent Admiralty Warehouse. The ship’s carvers are famous for their skill in making ornate transoms and figureheads. Could it have been one of these “bijltjes” who, in the spring of 1671, temporarily left the shipyard to work on the woodcarving of the Oosterkerk?

In the “accounts of income and expenses,” the churchwardens of the Oosterkerk kept records of everyone who contributed to its construction. On the sixth page, amid the invoices for delivered beer, wood, and copper, we read that three carvers were also paid. All three were woodworkers by trade, but not known for other church interiors—except one: the 27-year-old Barent Rijsenbeeck. In 1681, he would create three pulpit panels for the Reformed Church of Bennebroek with the same iconographic design as the Oosterkerk pulpit. As for the other two carvers, Guilaum Verhoef and Christoffel Spoelder, the church archives tell us little. Were these three men, in fact, ship’s carvers by profession? In any case, through their woodcarving in 1671, they succeeded in uniquely incorporating the identity of the islanders and their shipyards into the interior of the Oosterkerk.