Scarce decorative celestial map by Matthaus Seutter, published in Augsburg circa 1730.
The map includes two maps of the Northern & Southern Skies. A diagram in the upper right corner showing the monthly orbit and illumination of the moon, while another in the upper left represents day and night on the earth with quotations from Genesis. Five additional diagrams along the bottom represent the monthly orbit and illumination of the moon, the different planetary hypotheses of Tycho Brahe, Corpernicus, Ptolemy, and the annual orbit of the sun and the seasons.
The present example includes the privilege in the lower left corner, below the neatline.
Matthäus Seutter (1678-1757) was a prominent German mapmaker in the mid-eighteenth century. Initially apprenticed to a brewer, he trained as an engraver under Johann Baptist Homann in Nuremburg before setting up shop in his native Augsburg. In 1727 he was granted the title Imperial Geographer. His most famous work is Atlas Novus Sive Tabulae Geographicae, published in two volumes ca. 1730, although the majority of his maps are based on earlier work by other cartographers like the Homanns, Delisles, and de Fer.
Alternative spellings: Matthias Seutter, Mathaus Seutter, Matthaeus Seutter, Mattheus Seutter