Laurens van der Hem

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Van der Hem lived and collected in the house at 115 Herengracht - it was replaced by this new building

Laurens van der Hem ( 1621 - 1678 ) was a Dutch lawyer and collector of maps and landscapes. He is best known for having carefully compiled a personal collection of atlas based on the edition of Atlas Maior . This Atlas Maior was itself a major work of cartography and art, published by his contemporary and friend Joan Blaeu . His collection, later called Eugenius Atlas , is located in Vienna and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site .

biography

Van der Hem was born in Amsterdam as the son of the lawyer Ysbrand van der Hem and his wife Geertrui Spiegel, who was a daughter of the poet Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel . His paternal uncles were very famous themselves. His uncle Herman was a talented designer, Uncle Hendrik was a lawyer with a large library and Uncle Arend had been ennobled by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1620 and called himself Junker Arnold van der Hem, Ritter, Herr von Nedersteyn, Corl and Hilteprant. According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History , Van der Hem made educational trips to Italy. After his return he married and settled at 115 Herengracht , a house in a posh residential area on one of Amsterdam's three main canals. There he collected the material that he needed to supplement his personal copy of the Atlas Maior. This extensive collection of atlas is now known as the Eugenius Atlas or the Blaeu-Van der Hem Atlas . It is owned by the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

Collection as a sight

Title page of the Atlas Maior , which was the basis of the collection

Van der Hem's unique map and art collection became something of a tourist attraction during his lifetime. Many famous people who visited Amsterdam also came to Van de Hem's house to see the collection. One of them was Cosimo III. , the Grand Duke of Tuscany , who visited the Herengracht in 1668.

The multi-volume compilation of the atlas covers the entire world known at the time - the focus is on Europe and the Dutch possessions and spheres of interest overseas. The basis was the eleven-volume Atlas Maior (1662) by Joan Blaeu, to which Van der Hem added maps by other authors as well as views and hand drawings. In addition to printed and handwritten text pages with descriptions and explanations, the atlas includes around 2400 tables: maps, vedutas, plans, landscapes, genre drawings, battle scenes, portraits, buildings, festivities, triumphs, costumes. These are copper engravings, drawings (red chalk, charcoal, pencil and pen drawings), watercolors and gouaches.

Eugenius Atlas in Vienna

After Van der Hem's death in 1678, his wife inherited the Atlas and, after her death, first his daughter Agatha and then the other daughter Agnes. After Agnes' death in 1712, his grandson sold him at auction to Prince Eugene of Savoy , the governor of the Austrian Netherlands , for 22,000 guilders. After the purchase, the atlas was now called the Eugenius Atlas . Prince Eugene transported him to Vienna, where he is to this day. It is one of the outstanding holdings in the collections of the Austrian National Library. The atlas is now in the possession of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and was included in the UNESCO World Document Heritage Directory in Austria in 2003 .

In a fire in 1992 this atlas was almost lost. It has since been digitized band by band. In 2011 a facsimile project on the atlas was completed.

Web links

Commons : Laurens van der Hem  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnold van der Hem in the Montias database of the Frick Collection
  2. ^ Austrian picture archive , accessed on November 5, 2017.
  3. ^ The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In: unesco.org. Retrieved September 29, 2017 .
  4. ^ Austrian National Library - Collections. In: bildarchivaustria.at. February 19, 2017. Retrieved September 30, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Registered heritage page Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem in the Austrian National Library on the UNESCO World Heritage website
  6. ^ Website of the facsimile project with some colored illustrations
personal data
SURNAME Hem, Laurens van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch lawyer and collector of maps and landscapes
DATE OF BIRTH 1621
DATE OF DEATH 1678