Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula [A New Geographical and Hydrographic Map of the Entire World]

Description

Hand-coloured copper engraving with the very prominent and recognisable North & Southpole insets, a RARE reduced version of Blaeu’s world map lacking the decorative borders, published in Frankfurt. Neatly and decoratively executed, with Germanic touches to the lettering, the Latin title is repeated in gothic German script below, citing the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and the unknown interior of North America. Korea is an Island, Japan barely recognisable and the image of the Philippines dramatically oversized. A large southern continent connects to New Guinea, California is a peninsula, visible are plenty of open ended waterways in the eastern part of North America, a “guess” towards a Northwest Passage. This plate without Merian’s signature was prepared to accompany the ‘Archontologia’ reprint in 1646. Matthäus Merian was an engraver, etcher, and book dealer, the leading German illustrator of the 17^th C. In 1618, after his studies, he married the eldest daughter of J.T. de Bry, famous publisher and engraver based in Frankfurt and whose business he took over after the latter’s death in 1623. Merian completed the great record of discovery and travel Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam [“Collections of Travels in India”] in 1624, begun by the de Brys in 1590. Their business remained in Merian’s family until 1726, when a fire destroyed it. In 1635 he began the series Theatrum Europaeum, and from 1642 -1688 he published Martin Zeiller’s Topographia Germaniae, with more than 2,000 plates etched and engraved by himself and his sons Matthäus and Caspar. Among his last works was “Dance of Death” (1649). His daughter, Anna Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), was noted for her accurate, detailed, and delicate drawings of Natural History subjects and became one of the few famous recognised and admired female artists of her time.