Fragment from the Exceedingly Rare Van den Keere View of Cologne. Known in One Complete Example.
Well-executed fragment of the large landscape view of Cologne published by Peter van denr Keere (Petrus Kaerius) at the start of the 17th century. This sheet shows the center of the town near the Cologne "Capitol" building and shows the mercantile power of this city on the Rhine with the many barges that float in front of the town.
The view names a number of the cities of interest in the map. Below, coats of arms of important members of the city are shown.
We find few references to the work except in Volume 15 (1960) of Imago Mundi, which includes an inventory of the plates in the van den Keere catalog. This is mentioned as "The City of Cologne in 4 plates, each at 15 gl. fl."
Rarity
We trace only the example of this view at the British Library. The Dutch Nationaal Archief holds a 20th-century reproduction, but we were unable to find a mention of the original in their catalog.