Laurens van der Hem

He is known today for commissioning his meticulously thorough personal version of the Atlas Maior, itself a major work of cartography and art published by his contemporary and friend Joan Blaeu.

[1] According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (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.

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, Gaspar Bouttats, Jan Peeters I, Bonaventura Peeters the Elder, Jacques Callot and Cornelis Gerritsz Decker.

[6] Conrad von Uffenbach was reportedly highly impressed by the colouring done by the master he referred to as "Dirck Janssen van Santen".

After Agnes' death in 1712, Van der Hem's grandson sold it in an auction in 1730 to Prince Eugene of Savoy, a stadtholder in the Austrian-controlled Southern Netherlands, for 22,000 florins.

Herengracht 115, former address of Laurens van der Hem, in 1890 unrecognizably rebuilt after a design by Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Comparison of two versions of the map of New England titled "Novi Belgii" from the Atlas Maior . The top version was hand colored by Dirk Janszoon van Santen for Laurens van der Hem's personal copy; the lower version shows how it appeared in the version printed for publication by Joan Blaeu.