Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

Finely colored heraldic plate illustrating the coats of arms of the various parts of the Holy Roman Empire. 

The images is centered on the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor, with the arms of the 9 electors surrounding the central image and nearly 200 additional coats of arms.

Chatelain's Atlas Historique

This image appeared on Chatelain's monumental 7 volume Atlas Historique, one of the most expansive Dutch encyclopedias of the age. First published in 1705, Chatelain's Atlas Historique was an immense seven-volume encyclopedic work. Its main focus was geography, the maps were accompanied by information pertaining to cosmography, geography, history, chronology, genealogy, topography, heraldry, and costumes of the world.  The text was compiled by Nicholas Gueudeville and Garillon with a supplement by H.P. de Limiers and the maps were engraved by Chatelain.

The maps in the Atlas Historique were mainly based on those of the French cartographer, Guillaume De L’Isle, but also utilizing some several highly important maps by Nicolas De Fer and other important French mapmakers.   In addition to the maps,  the plates are drawn from important travel accounts of the period, such as those of Dapper, Chardin, de Bruyn, Le Hay and others. 

New scholarship has suggested the compiler of the atlas, who is identified on the title as "Mr. C***", may be Henri Abraham Châtelain, but Zacharie Châtelain. (See Van Waning's article in the Journal of the International Map Collectors' Society for persuasive evidence of the latter's authorship.).

The first edition of the seven volume work was printed between 1705 and 1720. The publishing history thereafter is quite complex, with all volumes except volume 7 republished in at least 2 editions between 1732 and 1739.

Condition Description
2-sheets joined.
Henri Chatelain Biography

Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743) was a Huguenot pastor of Parisian origins. Chatelain proved a successful businessman, creating lucrative networks in London, The Hague, and then Amsterdam. He is most well known for the Atlas Historique, published in seven volumes between 1705 and 1720. This encyclopedic work was devoted to the history and genealogy of the continents, discussing such topics as geography, cosmography, topography, heraldry, and ethnography. Published thanks to a partnership between Henri, his father, Zacharie, and his younger brother, also Zacharie, the text was contributed to by Nicolas Gueudeville, a French geographer. The maps were by Henri, largely after the work of Guillaume Delisle, and they offered the general reader a window into the emerging world of the eighteenth century.