Frederik Ottens

Active c 1700 - 1750

BiographyFrederik Ottens was a Dutch engraver who is known to have been active between the years of 1700 and 1750. He was a designer and engraver of portraits, religious subjects, city views and decorative subjects in 18th-century Amsterdam. Some sources claim he is known to have worked in Delft in 1727.

It is possible that he was either a member of (or even a pseudonym for) the Ottens Family (hence the 'F' initial) which was in the business of print and map selling during the first half of the 18th century. It was founded by Joachim Ottens (1663-1719) before being taken over by his sons Reiner (1698-1750) and Joshua (1704-1765). They produced enormous collections of maps, some as large as fifteen volumes. These, as was the case for practically all maps available at the time, were made up to order and were magnificently coloured. Besides these specially prepared collections they also issued single-volume atlases with varying contents as well as pocket atlases.

There is no mention of a 'Frederik' Ottens in most readily available biographical material on the Ottens Family which suggests that Frederik either preferred to be accredited seperately from his family, it was a pseudonym for the Family's collaborative works or he was a completely unrelated Ottens to the Ottens Family (which would be an unlikely coincidence given that they were active engravers in almost exactly the same time period and place).

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