About this sheet
The duchy of Anjou, titled on the plate Ducatus Andegavensis, with Angers at its centre and the Loire and the Mayenne drawn through it. The Mauges are lettered in the south west, La Fleche and the Maine to the north, Touraine to the east and the Loudunois and Poitou to the south, with Segre, Chateau-Gontier and the towns of the province named. A scale of Gallic miles and a decorative cartouche complete the sheet. Anjou is the country of the Plantagenets, whose name comes from the broom of its hedgerows, and the province has as strong an English association as any in France. A Blaeu plate of it therefore sells on both sides of the Channel, and the wine country around Saumur adds a further reason to hang it.
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 fair to good condition for its age, with the centre fold as issued and extensive damp staining in the margins, plus creasing at the lower left corner; the engraved image remains clear.
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.
