Antique Plan of the City of Diyarbakir, Niebuhr Engraving, 1780
€ 220
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1780
Mapmaker / artist
Carsten Niebuhr; engraved by Tringham
Publisher
S. J. Baalde, Amsterdam, and Barthelemy Wild, Utrecht
Technique
Copper engraving
Coloring
Uncolored
Sheet size
28 × 22 cm (11.0 × 8.7 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14407-2-48
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
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners.
About this sheet
An original antique copper engraving, published in 1780, with a plan of the walled city of Diyarbakir. The caption engraved in the lower margin reads Grondtekening der Stad Diarbekr. in Dutch and Plan de la Ville de Diarbekr. in French, both meaning "Plan of the City of Diyarbakir".
The city lies within a long wall set with close spaced towers, its streets and blocks drawn as a network with a compass circle in the middle. At the top of the circuit a small walled enclosure marked A is set into the wall. Numbers key gates and features around the circuit, and gardens and small buildings lie outside the walls at the left, where a road is lettered Ali poâr. The river, lettered Didsjele of Tiger Fl., "Didsjele or Tigris", winds down the right side of the sheet with arrows showing the direction of flow, and a small village lettered Kater bole stands on its far bank at the top. Below the city the ground falls away in deep gullies. A scale is lettered Pas. Geom. at the lower left.
The plate number Tab: XLVIII. is engraved at the upper right, and the engraver's credit Tringham Sc. is lettered below the lower right corner of the image.
The plate comes from the second volume of Carsten Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres Pays circonvoisins, Tome Second, the French translation printed at Amsterdam by S. J. Baalde and at Utrecht by Barthelemy Wild, with the title page dated MDCCLXXX. Carsten Niebuhr (1733 to 1815) was a German born surveyor in Danish service and the only member of the Danish expedition to Arabia (1761 to 1767), sent by King Frederick V of Denmark, to return alive. The account was first published in German at Copenhagen; this is the French translation printed in Amsterdam and Utrecht.
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners.
This is an original antique print, 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.
