Antique Plan of the City of Taiz in Yemen, Niebuhr Engraving, 1776
€ 210
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1776
Mapmaker / artist
Carsten Niebuhr
Publisher
S. J. Baalde, Amsterdam, and J. van Schoonhoven and Comp., Utrecht
Technique
Copper engraving
Coloring
Uncolored
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14407-1-66
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. Marked handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Several larger brown marks. A strip of paler paper along the left edge. All four corners are present.
About this sheet
This is an original antique copper engraving from 1776, plate LXVI of the first volume of Carsten Niebuhr's account of his travels in Arabia. The caption reads Grondtékening der Stad TÁÄS. in Dutch and Plan de la Ville de Táäs. in French, meaning "Plan of the town of Taas", the city now called Taiz in Yemen.
The walled town fills the center of the plan, its streets drawn as blocks with numbers for reference and a circular compass in the middle. The wall runs up the hillside to a fortified summit lettered Kähhre, and a smaller fortified point lettered B stands at the left corner of the town. Gardens, buildings and numbered places lie outside the walls, with a stream along the lower right. Above the town the slopes are drawn in heavy hachures and lettered Montis SABBER Pars (part of Mount Sabber), with Muguilje, Oddene ruin and Pagus Judæorum (the village of the Jews) at the left and upper center, and Elmaghahed at the lower right. A narrow panel along the right side gives a profile of the mountain lettered Kähhre, with the letters A and B. A scale in Pass: Géom: runs along the top.
No draftsman or engraver is named on this sheet. The plate number Tab: LXVI. is engraved at the upper right.
The plate comes from the first volume of Carsten Niebuhr's Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres Pays circonvoisins, Traduit de l'Allemand (translated from the German), published A Amsterdam, chez S. J. Baalde and A Utrecht, chez J. van Schoonhoven & Comp., with the date MDCCLXXVI (1776) on the title page. 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. Marked handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Foxing over much of the margin. Several larger brown marks. A strip of paler paper along the left edge. All four corners are present.
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.
