Hendrik Claudius
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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.
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.
Most of what is known about Claudius stems from his 1685 meeting with the French Jesuit missionary, Father Guy Tachard, who ventured that he was a competent painter of plants and animals. Some of his further indiscreet revelations in Voyage de Siam led to Claudius' deportation by Simon van der Stel.