Cologne Koeln, Laurens Van der Hem (1662)
Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem.
The 50 volume Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem contains more than 2,400 maps, prints, and drawings and offers a pictorial encyclopedia of 17th century knowledge ranging from geography and topography to warfare and politics. The lawyer Laurens Van der Hem (1621-1678) used the largest and most expensive book published in the 17th century, Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior, as the base for an even more ambitious collection of maps, charts, townscapes, architectural prints, portraits, etc., most of them luxuriously painted by well-known artists. The atlas represents the entire surface of the Earth and is often considered the most beautiful and most remarkable atlas ever composed.
