Gerard Hofstede van Essen (fl. 1690-1720) was a German/Dutch artist and traveler, active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He is only known by a handful of works attributed to him: views of Persepoli, Isfahan, and Naqsh-i Rustam in Iran; his c. 1713 'A Prospect of Constantinople;' his 1693 painted view of the newly-discovered ruins of Palmyra, and the printed view based on his own life-drawing of those ruins. Hofstede is understood to have accompanied William Halifax's 1691 expedition to Palmyra from Aleppo, where Hofstede was living at the time.
