‘t Koninklyke Lust-Hof en tuyn op’t Loo. / Vue de la Maison et jardin Royal du Loo.

Title

‘t Koninklyke Lust-Hof en tuyn op’t Loo. / Vue de la Maison et jardin Royal du Loo.

Description

Splendid bird's eye view of Het Loo Castle. In the foreground of the castle are many figurative scenes as well as a six-horse carriage. The former royal castle is located north-west of Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.

ca. 1700

Artist

Wit, de (1610-1698)

Frederik de Wit (1610 – 1698). His Atlas began to appear around 1662 and by 1671 included anywhere from 17 to 151 maps each. In the 1690s he began to use a new title page "Atlas Maior" but continued to use his old title page. His atlas of the Low Countries first published in 1667,was named Nieuw Kaertboeck van de XVII Nederlandse Provinciën and contained 14 to 25 maps. Frederik de Wit quickly expanded upon his first small folio atlas which contained mostly maps printed from plates that he had acquired, to an atlas with 27 maps engraved by or for him. By 1671 he was publishing a large folio atlas with as many as 100 maps. Smaller atlases of 17 or 27 or 51 maps could still be purchased and by the mid-1670s an atlas of as many as 151 maps and charts could be purchased from his shop. In ca.1675 Frederik de Wit released a new nautical atlas. The charts in this atlas replaced the earlier charts from 1664 that are known today in only four bound examples and a few loose copies. Frederik de Wit new charts were sold in a chart book and as part of his atlases. Frederik de Wit published no fewer than 158 land maps and 43 charts on separate folio sheets. In 1695 Frederik de Wit began to publish a town atlas of the Netherlands after he acquired a large number of city plans at the auction of the famous Blaeu publishing firm’s printing plates. Dating Frederik de Wit atlases is considered difficult because usually no dates were recorded on the maps and their dates of publication extended over many years.

Historical Description

The multi-winged, Baroque castle was built between 1685 and 1692 by the architects Jacob Roman and Daniel Marot near a 15th century moated castle, Kasteel Het Oude Loo. It served as a pleasure palace for the Dutch governor William III, who was also King of England under the name William III from 1688 to 1701, and his wife Mary II of England. The name “Het Loo” translates as “clearing”. After the childless death of William III in 1702, it was inherited by his first cousin and closest relative, King Frederick I of Prussia, who was descended from the House of Orange through both his mother, Luise Henriette of Orange, and his paternal grandmother, Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, as well as Huis ten Bosch in The Hague and the other private estates of the Orange family. His son Frederick William I, the Soldier King, sold it in 1732 to Prince William IV of Orange, who came from a distant collateral line of the House of Orange, the House of Nassau-Diez. r and his descendants, today's Dutch royal family, then used the palace as a summer residence until 1975.