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THE VAN KEULEN CARTOGRAPHY RESEARCH PROJECT
 
Recently the Van Keulen Cartography Research Project was initiated. It's
aim is to locate, study and catalogue the manuscript charts of the Firm of
Van Keulen, and also the genealogy of the family and the firm's history.
Johannes van Keulen established himself in Amsterdam as cartographer,
shortly before 1680. He soon made name as publisher of pilotbooks and he
also managed to take over the firms of several other cartographers. In
1704 his son Gerard took over, under whom a number of attractive manuscript
charts were produced. In 1743 Gerard's son, Johannes II, was appointed as
official cartographer to the Dutch East India Company, a title which
remained in the family until the Company was dissolved in 1799.
 
Hundreds of manuscript charts, of all parts of the world, were drawn at
the premises of the Amsterdam firm. Over the years these charts were
dispersed. More than half of the approximately 650 known copies are kept now
in the Leiden University Library. Other batches, large and small, are
preserved in the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin
and in collections in Amsterdam, The Hague, London, Madrid, Paris, Rio de
Janeiro, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Vienna.
So far, these manuscripts have been given very little attention by historians
of cartography and there is no comprehensive genealogy or published history
of the firm. The Van Keulen Cartography Research Project intends to change
this. In the next six years all known manuscript charts will be catalogued
according to uniform rules and evaluated. The catalogue with full colour
reproductions of all the charts, will be preceeded by chapters on the Van
Keulen's cartography, the history of the firm and the genealogy.
 
The project will be executed by:
Bas Dudok van Heel, Municipal Archives, Amsterdam
Mrs. Irene Jacobs, Maritime Museum, Rotterdam
Willem M rzer Bruyns, Netherlands Maritime Museum, Amsterdam
Prof.dr. G nther Schilder, Utrecht University, Utrecht
Dirk de Vries, University Library, Leiden.
 
For further information and if you may know of any other collection
possessing Van Keulen manuscript charts, please contact:
 
Dirk de Vries
Curator Collection Bodel Nijenhuis
University Library
P.O. Box 9501
2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
 
or
 
Mrs. Irene Jacobs
Maritime Museum 'Prins Hendrik'
P.O. Box 988
3000 AZ Rotterdam, Netherlands