Hereditas Antikvárium

Fair Partner ✔
16. Könyvárverés

Antwerpen, 1623.
A beautifully embellished, scarce copperplate map of Africa, created by Jodocus Hondius based on his own work published only 4 years earlier, in 1619 – on a slightly smaller scale – but here again he relied on Blaeu’s cartography. His topography and nomenclature are accurate mainly along the coastline, and in the unknown or desert areas of the continent, he illustrated his work with fictitious rivers, mountains, and vignettes of the region’s native animals. It shows the region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope in a north-south direction, and from the Canary Islands to the Arabian Peninsula in a west-east direction. In the ornate, baroque border framing the map field, six cityscapes were depicted at the top and bottom and five images of traditional African costumes on both sides, but these are completely missing in our copy. The engraver, Pieter van den Keere used a mirror image of the engraving vignettes of the costumed figures decorating the map field of the previous version, and placed a new cartouche surrounded by putti for the imprint in the lower left part of the map field – a mirror image of the cartouche of his own 1614 map of Africa. This cartouche contains the vanitas motifs he used as his own engraver’s attributes: the clock and the skull. The cartouche of the title field was taken over without any changes from Hondius’ earlier map. Our copy is the second state of the sheet, with the name of Jan Jansson indicated as the publisher.
Dimensions: 365 x 475 mm. Clear, strong print, trimmed around the frame of the map field (the abovementioned, enitre bordure decoration is missing).
van der Krogt 1, 1:202., Koeman II.: Me 170., Schilder VI.: 13.2.