Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638). Europa recens descripta à Guilielmo Blaeuw. (Amsterdam: 1630). Third state, featured in Blaeu’s 1630 Atlas Appendix. Copperplate engraving with hand-color. 16 x 21 7/8 in to neatline. Sheet size: 19 1/2 x 23 ½ in. Full margins. French text on verso. Very good condition.
$4,500.00
Classic Dutch Map of the Continent
An outstanding example of Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s carte-à-figures map of Europe produced at the height of the Golden Age of Dutch map making. Views of the great cities of Europe appear in the top border including Amsterdam, Prague, Constantinople, Venice, Rome, Paris, London, Toledo and Lisbon. The noblemen and women from various countries are displayed in national costume along the side borders. This map is a reduced version of Blaeu’s popular wall map of Europe published in 1617.
The map shows the entirety of Europe, as well as Northern Africa, Iceland, and part of Greenland. European countries are filled with city names, some marked by a symbol in the shape of a building. Rivers wind across countries, and thick forests cover some regions, especially in Russia.
The coastlines of Europe, aside from the Mediterranean coasts, were based on charting by the Dutch shipping trade. The seas are decorated throughout with sailing ships and sea monsters, and off the coast of Portugal a mythical Neptune is depicted riding a sea creature. Inland, lions roam across North Africa, and a trio of bears can be seen in Russia.
Although this map is highly accurate, and represents the great extent to which Europeans understood their own continent, the mythical island of Frisland does appear between Greenland and Iceland. Perhaps a misrepresentation of Iceland, Frisland would appear on many prominent maps throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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