Antique Blaeu Map of Asia, Arabia Felix and the East Indies, 1642

About this sheet

Blaeu's map of Asia, titled on the plate Asia noviter delineata, auctore Guilielmo Blaeuw. The map runs from the eastern Mediterranean and Arabia across Persia and India to China, the East Indies and the Pacific, with Europa and Africa lettered at the edges and America pars at the right hand side. Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, the Sinus Gangeticus, the Oceanus Indicus, Calicut, Bantam, Borneo and Macao are all named, and Arabic script appears on the plate in the Blaeu manner. This is the map of the trade the Dutch Republic lived on, published by the house that served as cartographer to the East India Company, and it is among the most collected of all seventeenth century maps of Asia. A major sheet, and the one most likely to find an international buyer quickly.

The Blaeu house of Amsterdam was the greatest cartographic publisher of the Dutch golden age. Willem Jansz Blaeu began the atlas that his son Joan Blaeu carried to its full extent, and the Dutch text edition, Toonneel des Aerdriicx ofte Nieuwe Atlas, set a standard for engraving, paper and typography that no rival in Europe matched. The copper plates were cut with great delicacy, the title cartouches were designed as ornaments in their own right, and the sheets were printed on heavy laid paper that has survived three and a half centuries remarkably well.

Blaeu maps have been collected continuously since the seventeenth century and are the benchmark against which other Dutch cartography is measured, so a sheet from this atlas is a serious piece of the history of the book as well as a map. A large Blaeu plate is one of the few antique maps that can carry a wall on its own.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with toning and soiling to the margins, heavier at the upper left, and uneven edges; the centre fold is as issued and the image is clean.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.