Hereditas Antikvárium

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16. Könyvárverés

Amsterdam, 1629.
A spectacular copper-engraved “carte-a-figures” map of Denmark by Jan Jansson (see lot 145). The sheet is based on the cartographic work of John Speed from 1626, and also adopts the figurative and landscape depictions of its frame decoration (which are reduced versions of the engravings published in Braun-Hogenberg’s “Civitates Orbis Terrarum”). The upper part of the embellished frame begins with a portrait of Christian IV, King of Denmark and Norway, followed by a panorama of Copenhagen and Helsingør, while the coat of arms of Denmark can be seen in the middle. This is followed again by images of two cities – the Swedish Landskrona and the Danish Ribe –, and the row is closed by a portrait of the king’s son, Prince Christian, then heir to the Danish throne (due to his early death, the throne passed to his younger brother, Frederick). The five images on both sides of the sheet show costumed figures from different social classes. The engraver, Pieter van den Keere, illustrated his work with two cartouches – one containing the title, the other the scale bar and the name of the publisher – as well as ships and a compass rose. It is reasonable to assume that the copy may have been sold as part of a composite atlas, and therefore the publisher cut off the lower cityscape strip originally included in the engraving, which contained a portrait of Tycho Brahe among six other views, but joined its thin frame decoration back under the map field, so that the modification would be less noticeable and the desired map would still fit into the volume.
Dimensions: 410 x 540 (420 x 545) mm. The right edge is damaged, and it has two early, paper-striped repairs on the verso.
Koeman II.: Me 173., Schilder VI.: 76.1.