Johannes Vingboons was a Dutch cartographer and watercolourist

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...

.

Life

Vingboons came from an artistic family. His father David Vinckboons

David Vinckboons

David Vinckboons was a Dutch Golden Age painter of Flemish origin.-Biography:Vinckboons was one of the most prolific and popular painters and print designers in the Netherlands...

 (1576–1632) was a successful painter and, of his five brothers, Philip Vingboons and Justus Vingboons

Justus Vingboons

Justus Vingboons was an Amsterdam architect. He was the brother of the better-known architect Philips Vingboons. Like his brother, Justus built in the "Dutch Classicism" style....

 were active as architects. Johannes Vinboons remained unmarried and lived with a large part of his family in an Amsterdam house and studio on Sint Antoniesbreestraat

Sint Antoniesbreestraat

The Sint Antoniesbreestraat is a street in the centre of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The street runs south from Nieuwmarkt square to the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates....

, on the corner of Salamandersteeg, now number 64. He began to paint and draw in the making of maps, cartoons and paintings for his father.

After their father's death, the sons renovated the building to use as a publisher's and printer's and brought in their own talents too: building designs from the two architects, maps and globes from Johannes. Five of the six sons were for a short or long time active as mapmaker, working together on them. From about 1640 until his death Johannes was a mapmaker, and a watercolourist in the service of the Amsterdam map publisher Joan Blaeu

Joan Blaeu

Joan Blaeu was a Dutch cartographer.He was born in Alkmaar, the son of cartographer Willem Blaeu.In 1620 he became a doctor of law but he joined the work of his father. In 1635 they published the Atlas Novus in two volumes...

.

Work

By combining his traditional expertise as a cartographer with his artistic qualities as a watercolourist, he produced water colors of exotic lands based on scrupulous research. These he based on reports and sketches that masters, helmsmen and merchants on their travels under the orders of the VOC

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

 and WIC

Dutch West India Company

Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...

. He made city elevations, plans, coastal profiles and sea charts, combining them until he had produced a unique series of images that gave an accurate image of a large part of the world then known to Dutch trade. For many of these areas, his are the earliest images.

Vingboons's work was unique and a sought after collector's item in its own time for rich private individuals. The largest batch, a series of 130 watercolours bound in three atlases, was bought in 1654 by queen Christina of Sweden

Christina of Sweden

Christina , later adopted the name Christina Alexandra, was Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora...

. After her death these atlases came into the possession of Pope Alexander VIII

Pope Alexander VIII

Pope Alexander VIII , born Pietro Vito Ottoboni, was Pope from 1689 to 1691.-Early life:Pietro Ottoboni was born of a noble Venetian family, and was the son of Marco Ottoboni, chancellor of the Republic of Venice...

, and now rest in the library of the Vatican

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

. The next largest collection, more than hundred works, is in the possession of the National Archives in the Hague. A small number of watercolours are in the Medici

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

  library in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. Four signed parchment world maps form part of the collection of the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam.

A large part of his work were on show from 27 January to 15 April 2007 at the exhibition "Land in zicht! Vingboons tekent de wereld van de 17e eeuw" (Land ho! Vingboons draws the world of the 17th century) in the Kunsthal

Kunsthal

The Kunsthal is a museum in Rotterdam, which opened its doors in 1992. The museum is situated in the Museumpark of Rotterdam next to the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam, and in the vicinity of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Entrance to the Kunsthal is from the Westzeedijk...

 in Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, organized in cooperation with the National Archives. The majority had never been exhibited before and never will be again, because of the images' vulnerability and small size. The three bound atlases left the Vatican papal library for the first time for the exhibition.

Sources

• De aquarellen van Johannes Vingboons online in the Atlas of Mutual Heritage
• Johannes Vingboons in the Nationaal Archief
• Johannes Vingboons in the Kunsthal
• Jacobine E. Huisken, Friso Lammertse, Het kunstbedrijf van de familie Vingboons. Schilders, architecten en kaartmakers in de gouden eeuw, Maarssen, 1989, ISBN 90-6179-073-5
• Martine Gosselink, Paul Brood, Land in zicht. De wereld volgens Vingboons, Zwolle, 2007, ISBN 90-400-8292-8 (exhibition catalogue)