Reference Books
The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library.
By Peter van der Krogt.
Sep 4, 2005, 05:07

I.     Spain, Portugal and France (vols 1-8). With 466 illustrations, incl. 16 in colour. 632pp. (Price Euro 475.00 )
II.   Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands (vols 9-17). With 700 illustrations. 732pp.   (Price Euro 475.00 )
III.  British Isles, Northern and Eastern Europe (vols 18-24). With 700 illustrations. 552pp. (Price Euro 475.00 )
IV.  German Empire, Hungary and Greece, including Asia Minor and Bible Maps. (vols 25-34) With 800 illustrations, including 16 in colour. 708pp.  ( Price Euro 575.00 )
V.   Africa, Asia and America with the so-called secret atlas of the VOC (vols 35-46). 5àà illustrations. 644pp. (Price Euro 575.00 )
VI. Additional volumes ("Ergänzungsbände") and general index. (Price Euro 575.00 )
VII.  The world of a seventeenth-century collector. With 157 illustrations, of which 12 full colour. 395pp. (Price Euro 99.00 )

Price for complete set  Euro 3249,00
Shipping costs within Europe Euros 40,00, outside Europe Euros  135,00

The Atlas Blaeu-van der Hem forms today the finest collection of maps, topographical prints and drawings that has come down to us from the seventeenth century.

The forty-six volumes of the collection, still fully intact, contain over 2400 maps, views of towns, buildings, and harbors, seascapes and landscapes from all over the world. The whole offers a pictorial encyclopedia of contemporary knowledge ranging from geography and topography to warfare and politics. Works from some of the most famous artists of their time appear in the atlas. All their drawings and prints are accurately adapted to the format and aim of the atlas, forming a coherent ensemble with the maps, charts, and texts.

The Amsterdam lawyer Laurens van der Hem (1621-1678) used his 11-volume Atlas Maior published by Joan Blaeu in 1662 as a portmanteau for other cartographical and topographical prints and drawings. He augmented the 600 maps of his Atlas Maior with maps, drawings, manuscripts and printed texts of his own choice. This copy thus expanded to include 2400 maps, views, etc. in 46 folio volumes.
Among the additions were four volumes of manuscript maps made for the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which normally were available only for use by VOC officers.

In 1730 the atlas was sold by Van der Hem's heirs to Prince Eugene of Savoy, stadholder-general of the Southern Netherlands. His heir, his niece Victoria, sold the atlas to the imperial library in Vienna, now the Austrian National Library.

The maps and prints are decorated with goldleaf, and beautifully handcoloured by the well-known Dirck Jansz. van  Santen and other colourists.
The drawings are highly finished, nearly always washed with one or two kinds of ink, and sometimes even handcoloured. All available means were used to create the best possible image of the site. Many of these drawings were specifically commissioned by Laurens van der Hem to enrich and complete his atlas, and to create a personal image of the world.

The uniqueness of Van der Hem's Atlas derives from the rarity and originality of the supplementary material and from the skillful and artistically pleasing way the additions were mingled with the more standard features.
The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem is the only such collection that has survived intact from the seventeenth century and has an immense historical,
topographical and artistic value.

For the first time a scholarly description of all the sheets in the atlas is being compiled. Our edition of this catalogue, issued in five volumes, will
include all maps, plates, views and drawings in black-and-white reproductions with cartographical, historical and art-historical descriptions by Peter van der Krogt, maphistorian at the University of Utrecht, and by Erlend de Groot, art-historian at the University of Nijmegen. Also a
selection of the plates will be reproduced in colours.

In additions to the maps, cityplans, bird's-eye views and vistas the Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem contains a wealth of material on archaeology, architecture, engineering, ethnography, costume, navigation, fortification, warfare, hydrolics, poriraiture, sculpture, heraldry, and many aspects of the seventeenth-century history and ceremony. The Atlas presents this material in a coherent fashion. Therefore, the present catalogue follows the original order of the Atlas. Additional information  to be found in special section on Atlas van der Hem.