1617 / 1634 Willem Blaeu Carte-a-Figures of Europe

This is a beautiful example of Willem Blaeu's 1617 map of Europe, in its 1634 atlas issue, produced at the height of the Golden Age of Dutch Mapmaking. This beautifully engraved work was one of Blaeu's four continental cartes à figures and is a classic of the form. The map displays a selection of Europe's most famous cities in the top border and noble denizens of various countries in their characteristic styles in the left and right borders. The map is embellished with sailing ships, sea battles, and sea monsters.

A Closer Look

The map presents Europe but reaches as far south as North Africa, thus including the Mediterranean Sea and the Lower Nile. It further includes the Canary Islands in the southwest, a glimpse of the Red Sea in the southeast, and southern Greenland in the northwest. The elegant cartouche occupies the upper right, whose detail in that quadrant diminishes beyond the Volga River. The map extends just beyond the Arctic Circle.

The East

The map extends to the Volga River and the Dvina River and thus encompasses Muscovy and Russia, beyond which lies Tartaria and Asia. Lithuania is bounded with an engraved dotted line as well as a highlighting border in original color. Kiovia and present-day Ukraine within those bounds and thus not part of Tartaria or Muscovy. The Ottoman Empire extends well into Greece and the Balkans.

The North

Blaeu's Scandinavia is state-of-the-art and reflects the knowledge of Anders Bure (1571 - 1646). His treatment of Iceland, too, reflects the understanding of that island that had first exploded in European cartography with Ortelius' publication of the map of Guðbrandur Þorláksson (1542 - 1627.) However, it also includes the phantom island of Frisland, a tenacious remnant of the 1558 fraud inflicted on European cartography by Nicoló Zeno the Younger (1515 - 1565).

Carte-á-figures Surround

Although other Dutch mapmakers (Hondius, Jansson, and van der Keere, for example) also produced such maps, maps of Blaeu in this form are justifiably well known and prized. Generally, this grand treatment was reserved for maps of the continents - these large-scale, general maps were showcases for the mapmaker's art. This was the case here: indeed, the privilege in the lower left prohibits the copying of 'these tables of the four parts of the world,' reflecting the intention of the author that the four be considered a set. Often, such maps were separate issues or intended for larger, deluxe editions of their respective atlases. For the Hondius' atlas, for instance, the borders tended to be absent in the continent maps to permit the use of smaller folio sheets and waste less margin space throughout the rest of the book. Blaeu's lavish atlases, sporting large sheets and broad borders, were intended to beautifully showcase maps such as this. The city views along the top - Amsterdam, Prague, Constantinople, Venice, Rome, Paris, London, Toledo, and Lisbon - were, for the most part, derived from the respective sheets in the Braun and Hogenberg Civitatis Orbis Terrarum. The left and right borders display noblemen and women of England, France, the Netherlands, Castille, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Greece. The panel for Venice seems to break the theme, depicting instead the Doge and a courtier.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved in 1617 along with similarly-styled cartes à figures of the other continents; they were very likely sold as sets. The map is recorded in three states. The virtually unacquirable first state was dated and bore Blaeu's imprint 'Guiliel. Janssonio,' prior to Jan Jansson's establishment as a next-door competitor. The present example is the map's second state, lacking a date and bearing the new 'Guilielmo Blaeuw' imprint. It, too, may have enjoyed a separate issue but made its first bound appearance in the 1630 Appendix. Our example appeared in the 1634 German text edition of the Blaeu Novus Atlas. A third state was produced by Joan Blaeu in 1660, eliminating the phantom island of Frisland. The map appears on the market from time to time and is well-represented in institutional collections.