Atlas Blaeu-Van Der Hem
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Laurens van der Hem (1621–1678), was a Dutch lawyer and a collector of maps and landscape prints. He is known today for commissioning his meticulously thorough personal version of the ''
Atlas Maior The ''Atlas Maior'' is the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas, published in Amsterdam between 1662 and 1672, in Latin (11 volumes), French (12 volumes), Dutch (9 volumes), German (10 volumes) and Spanish (10 volumes), containing 594 maps and a ...
'', itself a major work of cartography and art published by his contemporary and friend
Joan Blaeu Joan Blaeu (; 23 September 1596 – 21 December 1673) was a Dutch cartographer born in Alkmaar, the son of cartographer Willem Blaeu. Life In 1620, Blaeu became a doctor of law but he joined the work of his father. In 1635, they published ...
.


Biography

Van der Hem was born in Amsterdam as the son of the lawyer Ysbrand van der Hem and his wife Geertrui Spiegel, the daughter of the poet Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel. His uncles on his father's side were famous in their own right; his uncle Herman was a gifted
draughtsman A draughtsman (British spelling) or draftsman (American spelling) may refer to: * An architectural drafter, who produced architectural drawings until the late 20th century * An artist who produces drawings that rival or surpass their other types ...
, uncle Hendrik became a lawyer who acquired a large library, and uncle Arend was knighted by Ferdinand II in 1620, and called himself Jonker Arnold van der Hem, Ridder, Heer van Nedersteyn, Corl en Hilteprant. According to the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...
(RKD), Van der Hem travelled in Italy, and on his return married and settled on the Herengracht, an elite residential area on one of the three major
canals of Amsterdam Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than of '' grachten'' (canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form c ...
. There he collected the material he used to supplement his personal copy of the ''Atlas Maior''. His copy of the atlas is now known as the ''Eugenius-atlas'' or the ''Atlas Blauw-van der Hem'' and is today kept at the
Austrian National Library The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...
in Vienna.Laurens van der Hem
in the
RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...


Blaeu's ''Atlas Maior''

The ''Atlas Maior'' was popular in Amsterdam when it was published in installments starting in 1649 (last volume in 1673) in 11 gold-embossed volumes. To save money, collectors could purchase it plain without handpainted embellishments. However, Laurens van der Hem went a step further and ordered his maps unbound, and proceeded to have Blaeu's best professional map-finisher, Dirk Jansz van Santen, colour them by hand. The eleven volumes of Blaeu's atlas form the main body of the Van der Hem's personal copy, but they also include a number of additions including a volume of secret maps created by the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
(VOC) that were never part of the original publication. Van der Hem's entire collection consists of 46 volumes with four supplements and a portfolio of loose maps, which together include over 2,400 full colour maps and drawings of ports, towers, and landscapes by renowned Dutch artists such as
Andries Beeckman Andries Beeckman (baptized 31 August 1628, Hasselt - buried 9 August 1664, Amsterdam) was a Dutch painter of the 17th century. He is especially famous for his paintings of Southeast Asia and Batavia c. 1660. In 1657 he was known as Andries Be ...
,
Gaspar Bouttats Gaspar Bouttats the Elder or Gaspard Bouttats the ElderName variations: Caspar Bouttats, Gasper Bouttats, Gaspard-Martin Bouttats and Jasper Bottats (c. 1640 – 1695–96) was a Flemish printmaker and engraver of the Baroque period. Life He ...
,
Jan Peeters I Jan Peeters the Elder or Johannes Peeters (24 April 1624 – 1677) was a Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman. He is known for his seascapes often depicting stormy seas and shipwrecks as well as for his topographical drawings, many of whic ...
,
Bonaventura Peeters the Elder Bonaventura Peeters (I) or Bonaventura Peeters the Elder (23 July 1614 – 25 July 1652) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and etcher. He became one of the leading marine artists in the Low Countries in the first half of the 17th century wi ...
,
Jacques Callot Jacques Callot (; – 1635) was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine (an independent state on the north-eastern border of France, southwestern border of Germany and overlapping the southern Netherlands). He is an impo ...
and
Cornelis Gerritsz Decker Cornelis Gerritsz Decker (1618, Haarlem – 1678, Haarlem), was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. Life He was possibly a relation of David Decker, who was registered in the Haarlem guild as a pupil of Gerrit Claesz Bleker in Haarlem i ...
. Some artists who travelled and brought back drawings made on their travels also had their works included, such as
Lambert Doomer Lambert Doomer (11 February 1624 – 2 July 1700) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. Biography Doomer was the third of nine children of Herman Doomer (1595–1650) and his wife Baertje Martens, who ran a successful business in ebony ...
, Jan Hackaert,
Adriaen Matham Adriaen Matham (1590 – 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, engraver and art dealer. He was part of an embassy to the Saadi dynasty of Morocco and also made some engravings while there. He married three times, once in Amsterdam and later lived ...
,
Roelant Savery Roelant Savery (or ''Roeland(t) Maertensz Saverij'', or ''de Savery'', or many variants; 1576 – buried 25 February 1639) was a Flanders-born Dutch Golden Age painter. Life Savery was born in Kortrijk. Like so many other artists, he belonge ...
, Willem Schellinks, and
Reinier Nooms Reinier Nooms (c. 1623 – 1664), also known as Zeeman or Seeman (Dutch for "sailor"), was a Dutch maritime painter known for his highly detailed paintings and etchings of ships. From the 1650s, Nooms started producing and initially publishi ...
, also named as 'Zeeman'. Southwest France was drawn by Laurens' brother Herman, who died a bachelor in
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
. Drawings of Italy and
Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...
were described by Van der Helm himself.


Curiosity cabinet

Van der Hem's unique map collection became something of a tourist attraction during his lifetime, and several famous people who visited Amsterdam at the time also visited Van der Hem's home to view the collection. One of these was
Cosimo III Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...
, the
Grand Duke of Tuscany The rulers of Tuscany varied over time, sometimes being margraves, the rulers of handfuls of border counties and sometimes the heads of the most important family of the region. Margraves of Tuscany, 812–1197 House of Boniface :These were origin ...
, who visited the Herengracht on 2 January 1668.Website
about the facsimile project
On 9 March 1711, the German travelling scholar
Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach (22 February 1683 – 6 January 1734) was a German scholar, bibliophile, book-collector, traveller, palaeographer, and consul in Frankfurt am Main who is best known today for his published travelogues. Biography He ...
paid a visit to Laurens' daughter Agatha (''Jungfer van der Gemm'') to view her ''Blauischen Atlas'', for which the Comte d'Avaux had offered her 20,000
guilders Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' "gold penny". This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Roman Empir ...
, but which she valued at 50,000 guilders. Conrad von Uffenbach was reportedly highly impressed by the colouring done by the master he referred to as "Dirck Janssen van Santen".


''Eugenius atlas''

After Van der Hem's death in 1678, the atlas was inherited by his wife and after her death by his daughter Agatha and then his other daughter Agnes. After Agnes' death in 1712, Van der Hem's grandson sold it in an auction in 1730 to
Prince Eugene of Savoy Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy–Carignano, (18 October 1663 – 21 April 1736) better known as Prince Eugene, was a Generalfeldmarschall, field marshal in the army of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty during the 17th a ...
, a
stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...
in the Austrian-controlled
Southern Netherlands The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...
, for 22,000 florins. After the purchase, the atlas came to be known as the ''Eugenius-atlas''. Prince Eugene transported it to Vienna where it remains to this day, and is one of the prized possessions in the collection of the
Austrian National Library The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...
. The atlas was nearly lost in a fire in 1992 and has since been digitised and added to the UNESCO
Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
in 2003. In 2011 a facsimile project was completed.Website of the facsimile project
with several full color pictures
File:ElMina AtlasBlaeuvanderHem.jpg,
Elmina Castle Elmina Castle was erected by the Portugal, Portuguese in 1482 as Castelo de São Jorge da Mina (''St. George of the Mine Castle''), also known as ''Castelo da Mina'' or simply ''Mina'' (or ''Factory (trading post), Feitoria da Mina''), in presen ...
on the coast of modern-day Ghana File:Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem - Taioan.jpg, Fort Zeelandia,
Dutch Formosa The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as ''Formosa'', was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence ...
(modern-day
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
) File:NoviBelgii.jpg, Map of
New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of the United States, east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territor ...
, with
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
File:PuertoRico AtlasBlaeuVanDerHem.jpg, Map of
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...


References


External links


Dutch documentary
on the Atlas Blauw-van der Hem
"Makian As It Appears from the Side of Ngofakiaha"
with biographical information about van der Hem {{DEFAULTSORT:Hem, Laurens van der 1621 births 1678 deaths Art collectors from Amsterdam Lawyers from Amsterdam 17th-century Dutch lawyers