Portrait Mercator and Hondius
by Colette Van Der Keere1619
A creation of a portrait honoring her husband, a year after his death. He is accompanied by Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator. They are two eminent cartographers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mercator is still recognized today for its rectangular projection of the world map that is used in many classrooms of geography. The engraving is printed for the series of the Mercator-Hondius atlas from 1619 and published in Amsterdam by Henricus Hondius.
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Colette van den Keere was born in Ghent in the Netherlands around 1568. She is the daughter of the founding artist Hendrik van den Keere, called Henry of Tour.
The family of Colette, Protestant refugees, moved to London between 1584 and 1593 and returned to Amsterdam in 1595.
She married Jodocus Hondius in London on April 11, 1587 and gave birth to also cartographers, Jodocus Hondius the Younger, Hendrik Hondius the Younger and Johannes Janssonius. Her husband returned in 1593 to Amsterdam, set up a printmaking workshop and a library and produced globes and the first large maps of the world.
When Jodocus Hondius passed away, she resumed her business for a short time before her death in 1612.
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