Speed/ Van der Keere “Connack”… 1627

“Connack”… 1627 …John Speed/Peter Van der Keere/George Humble… 4.5” x 3.25” (11.5 cms x 8 cm). Copper engraved … hand coloured. Peter Van Den Keere fled from religious persecution in the Low Countries between 1570 and 1590. He moved to London in 1584 with his sister who married Jocodus Hondius another refugee. Hondius taught Van der Keere the skills of engraving and cartography who then engraved many maps, including these ‘Miniature Speeds’, for the most prominent cartographers of the day. Around 1599, he engraved the plates for 44 maps of the English and Welsh counties, the regions of Scotland and the Irish provinces. These maps were first published in book form possibly in Amsterdam between 1605 and 1610 although at least one authority believes they existed only in proof form until 1617 when Blaeu issued them with a Latin edition of Camden’s Britannia. These plates were later acquired by Speed’s publisher, George Humble, who in 1627, issued the Keere maps as a pocket edition. For these he used the descriptive texts of the larger Speed maps, which had earlier been published by him, and thereafter they became known as ‘Miniature Speeds’. Map Ref: 947