----------------------------Original message---------------------------- 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