Antique Blaeu Map of Poitou, Oleron and Noirmoutier, 1642

€ 1 950

Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)

Date: 1642
Mapmaker / artist: Joan Blaeu
Publisher: Joan Blaeu, Amsterdam
Technique: Copper Engraving
Coloring: Later hand color
Sheet size: 50 × 59 cm (19.7 × 23.2 in)
Condition: Good
Reference: HP-037

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Condition

Good condition for its age. Centre fold as issued. Light toning to the margins with a few small spots and minor edge wear. Image clean. Please review the images for further condition details.

About this sheet

The duchy of Poitou, titled on the plate Pictaviae Ducatus descriptio, vulgo le pais de Poictou. The map runs from part of Brittany in the north west down the Atlantic coast past the isles of Noirmoutier and Dieu to La Rochelle, the pays d'Aunis and the island of Oleron, with Touraine, the Loudunois, the Mirebalais, Berry, the Haute and Basse Marche, the Angoumois and part of the Saintonge lettered around it. A scale of miles is engraved on the sheet. La Rochelle had fallen to Richelieu only fourteen years before this plate was printed and the siege was still recent news in Amsterdam, where the Protestant sympathies of the readership were not in doubt. A large and handsome coastal sheet.

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 the center fold as issued and light toning and a few spots in the margins; the image itself is clean and bright.

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.