May 26, 2016 - Sale 2417

Sale 2417 - Lot 55

Price Realized: $ 5,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(WORLD MAP--FRAGMENT.) [Anonymous.] Europae. [Title in image.] Double-page engraved map, constituting one plate from an unrecorded, circa 1570s cordiform world map. 335x485 mm image size, wide margins; old hand-color in full; slight soiling in the margins, very few shallow edge nicks. Old ink inscription "4" on verso. [Probably Netherlands, circa 1576]
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Additional Details

This fascinating image, which on its face is an oddly-projected map of Europe, most probably constitutes one plate from an unrecorded, and perhaps never-completed, sixteen-plate-equivalent cordiform world map. The cartography clearly derives from Ortelius's 1564 eight-sheet cordiform world map (Shirley 114), and indeed the present map might represent an abortive attempt to update it. This map shares some updates with Oretlius's later map of Europe. Van der Krogt suggests Franz Hogenberg is responsible for this map; that seems quite possible.

The map came to us in a group of four similarly hand-colored Dutch maps (lots ), certainly a remainder of an early composite atlas. Two of the maps from that group are inscribed "1576" in pencil; presumably this is the date the atlas was compiled, and it is a plausible date for the publication of the maps as well.