Hendrik Claudius

Gomphocarpus cancellatus
Simon van der Stel's journey to Namaqualand 1685

Hendrik Claudius aka Heinrich Claudius (c1655 Breslau - after 1697 Holland) was a German painter and apothecary or physician, noted for his contributions to the Codex Witsenii of Nicolaes Witsen.

Claudius arrived in the Cape Colony from Batavia in 1682 to paint plants of medicinal interest. He joined Ensign Olof Bergh's second expedition in 1683 to Namaqualand in a quest to locate the source of rich copper ore. It is thought that two years later he also joined Governor Simon van der Stel who had the same goal, and that he was responsible for the illustrations in an account of the expedition. He is also regarded as one of the artists contributing to Jacob Breyne's Exoticarum aliarumque minus cognitarum plantarum centuria prima. In all the Africana Museum in Johannesburg acquired some 433 water-colours ascribed to him. His work is also held by the South African Library in Cape Town, the British Museum, the library of Trinity College in Dublin and the University library of Marburg in Hesse.

Most of what is known about Claudius stems from his 1685 meeting with the visiting French Jesuit missionary, Father Guy Tachard, who ventured that he was a competent painter of plants and animals after seeing two large volumes of his works, stating that if they had been for sale they would have been purchased for the French King. Some of his further and rather indiscreet revelations in Voyage de Siam led to Claudius' deportation to Mauritius and Batavia by Simon van der Stel. Tachard wrote "It is from him that we obtained all our knowledge of the country. He gave us a little map made by his own hand." This, during a period when the Dutch occupiers of the Cape were extremely suspicious of the French and their designs on the Cape.

External links

• Codex Witsenii