BLAEU, Willem Janszoon - b. 1571 Uitgeest, d. 1638 Amsterdam

Dutch cartographer, printmaker, editor and book dealer. As the son of a well-to-do herring salesman, he was destined to succeed his father in the trade, but his interests lay more in mathematics and astronomy. Between 1594 and 1596 as a student of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) he qualified as an instrument and globe maker. In 1600 he discovered the second ever variable star now known as P Cygni.

Once he returned to the Netherlands, he made country maps and world globes, and as he possessed his own printing works, he was able to regularly produce country maps in an atlas format, some of which appeared in the Atlas Novus published in 1635. In 1633 he was appointed map-maker of the Dutch East India Company.

He had two sons, Joan and Cornelis Blaeu, who continued their father’s mapmaking and publishing business after his death in 1638. Prints of the family’s works are still sold today. Original maps are rare collector items.

Celestial and Terrestrial Globes

Between the 1580s and 1610s, Dutch cartography became a major player in Europe. The manufacture of globes in Amsterdam at this time was defined by the market battle fought between the firms of Van Langren, Hondius and Blaeu, which was eventually won by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, thanks to his scientific skill and his artistic inventions.

During this period, four or five pairs of terrestrial and celestial globes of different sizes were produced, and supreme among them were the largest (68 cm in diameter) globes to come out of Amsterdam, produced by the Blaeu publishing house between 1614 and 1617.