A comprehensive street lighting scheme for Amsterdam, designed and implemented by van der Heyden, remained in operation from 1669 until 1840 and was adopted as a model by many other towns and abroad.

Several examples of van der Heyden’s paintings on glass (verre eglomisé) have survived and probably date from this early part of his career.

[4] He was clearly greatly preoccupied with the problem of how to fight fires effectively, and, with his brother Nicolaes, devoted much time between 1668 and 1671 to inventing a new, highly successful water pumping mechanism.

In collaboration with his eldest son Jan, he published in 1690 an illustrated book on fire-fighting, entitled 'Beschrijving der nieuwlijks uitgevonden en geoctrojeerde Slangbrandspuiten' ('Description of the recently invented and patented hose fire engines').

His only known pupil is his son Jan.[8] Van der Heyden was one of the first Dutch painters to dedicate most of his output to cityscapes and other depictions of groups of buildings.

In addition, he painted vistas of other Dutch, Flemish and German cities (in particular the region near the Dutch–German border), country houses and estates and landscapes.

[11] The inclusion of these discordant elements undermining the country idyll set van der Heyden apart from his contemporary Gerrit Berckheyde.

Various of his compositions include out-of-place statuary, stray farm animals or even urban shepherdesses, which add a feeling of anomaly and contradiction.

[12] Despite the apparently naturalistic style, which was so detailed that every single brick was visible, the artist did not strive for topographical accuracy in his city views.

It is possible that van der Heyden achieved the details in his paintings with the aid of a magnifying glass or even a camera obscura, lenses and mirrors.

Van der Heyden's skill in distributing areas of light and shade and his mastery of subtle atmospheric effects contribute to the sense of coherence and unity of his works.

These symbols include not only hourglasses, skulls and smoking candles but also attributes of scholarship and intellectual inquiry assembled in an amateur collector's cabinet or the study of a humanist scholar.

In particular, like in Dou's composition, van der Heyden's still life scene depicts a wide range of objects of an artistic as well as a scientific nature.

This world of trade is represented in the globe and atlas, as well as the imported products such as the Chinese silk cloth on the table, the Japanese lacquered box and the exotic animal (a South American iguana) suspended at the back of the composition.

[14] These fortifications had been built during the Eighty Years War with Spain and had played an important role in achieving the first victories against the Spanish troops.

In the lower right of the painting is a large Protestant Bible opened to the end of Het Boeck der Psalmen (Book of Psalms) at the chapter entitled PROVERBIA / Spreuken / SALOMONIS (Solomon's Proverbs).

[14] Van der Heyden painted his still life masterpiece Room Corner with Curiosities at the age of seventy-five in 1712, the year he died.

Now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest the composition reprises the themes of his earlier still lifes with special attention given to the vanitas symbolism.

Other exotic objects reference all the routes plowed by the Dutch merchant fleets: a Turkish carpet, Chinese silk and porcelain, Japanese weapons and a stuffed armadillo from South America.

Classical culture, the cradle of European civilization, is represented in the picture above the fireplace, which depicts the tragedy of Dido, and the German cabinet, which is decorated with an image of Minerva.

[15] In 2019, van der Heyden's Picture of a Dutch Square which had been confiscated by the Gestapo after the Jewish owners Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus fled Nazi persecution, was restituted to the family.