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1630 Willem Janszoon Blaeu
$ 6,500.00
Description

Finely colored example of the Blaeu's map of the British Isles.

The map includes a title cartouche, compass rose, sailing ships, sea monster and a portrait of King James I.

A marvelous carte-a-figures map with vertical margins of costumed figures and six oval vignettes of the principal cities along the upper horizontal margin.

Fine dark impression, with wide clean margins.

Condition Description
Trimmed with slight loss to vertical strapwork margins
Reference
R. W. Shirley. Early Printed Maps of the British Isles 1477 - 1650, no. 411
Willem Janszoon Blaeu Biography

Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) was a prominent Dutch geographer and publisher. Born the son of a herring merchant, Blaeu chose not fish but mathematics and astronomy for his focus. He studied with the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, with whom he honed his instrument and globe making skills. Blaeu set up shop in Amsterdam, where he sold instruments and globes, published maps, and edited the works of intellectuals like Descartes and Hugo Grotius. In 1635, he released his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas novus.

Willem died in 1638. He had two sons, Cornelis (1610-1648) and Joan (1596-1673). Joan trained as a lawyer, but joined his father’s business rather than practice. After his father’s death, the brothers took over their father’s shop and Joan took on his work as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. Later in life, Joan would modify and greatly expand his father’s Atlas novus, eventually releasing his masterpiece, the Atlas maior, between 1662 and 1672.