About this sheet
The duchy of Touraine, engraved for Blaeu after the survey of Isaac Francois, and titled on the plate as Ducatus Turonensis, vulgo Touraine. Tours sits at the centre with the Loire running across the sheet, and the neighbouring provinces are lettered around the edges: part of the Vendomois to the north, part of Anjou to the west, part of Berry to the east and Poitou to the south. A scale of common Gallic miles is engraved on the map and the Amsterdam imprint appears below. This is the chateau country, the richest stretch of the Loire, and a Blaeu map of it has an obvious appeal to anyone who knows Amboise, Chenonceau or Azay. The engraving is crisp and the decorative cartouche is characteristic of the workshop at its best.
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 centre fold as issued, light toning and some soiling confined to 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.
