Potgieter was a thoroughgoing Romantic who eulogized the Holland of the 17th century. As a businessman, he was at the same time convinced that trade expansion was all-important for the rebirth of the Dutch nation. His initial optimism is evident in Jan, Jannetje en hun jongste kind (1842; “Jan, Jannetje and their Youngest Child”), an allegory satirizing the people's mental inertia; and in Het Rijksmuseum (1844), a homage to 17th-century Holland and to the prose style of Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (Hooft, Pieter Corneliszoon), which it imitates.

His subsequent work includes Onder weg in den regen (1864; “On the Way in the Rain”), the best of many subtle and often humorous sketches; Florence (1868), a long poem in tercets; and De nalatenschap van den landjonker (1875; “The Inheritance of the Country Squire”), a poem cycle by a fictitious aristocrat.