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Highly decorative map of the West African coast with a decorative vignette, showing the African portion of course of Battel's voyage to Brazil. Van Der Aa was without a doubt the most prolific Dutch publisher of 15th and 16th Century Voyages, bringing to print many works which were even then inaccessible in their original forms. For most of his works, he commissioned the engraving of standard size maps which were illustrated the contemporary cartography and discoveries of the subject matter of his text. The voyages could be ordered bound as a set or in serial form and are now increasing rare. The maps for these works demonstrate the best of Van der Aa's decorative embellishments and provide a nice cartographic record of regions and time periods which would otherwise be virtually unobtainable to collectors.
Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) was a Dutch mapmaker and publisher who printed pirated editions of foreign bestsellers and illustrated books, but is best known for his voluminous output of maps and atlases. Van der Aa was born to a German stonecutter from Holstein. Interestingly, all three van der Aa sons came to be involved in the printing business. Hildebrand was a copper engraver and Boudewyn was a printer.
![[Southwestern Coast of Africa] Pas-Caart van Guinea en de Custen daer aen gelegen Van Cabo verde tot Cabo de Bona Esperanca](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/46931.jpg)
