L'AFRIQUE SUIVANT LES NOUVELLES OBSERVATIONS
£225
Atractive and detailed map of the African continent including the Atlantic islands and just a bit of Brazil. The Nile river is depicted originating in two small lakes named 'Damot and Dambea'.
Decorative title cartouche featuring elephants, an ostrich and a man wrestling a crocodile.
Finely engraved win Van Der Aa's style . Good impression. Wide margins
Excellent hand colour
Mint condition
code : M4997
Cartographer : Pieter Van Der AA
Date : 1729 Amsterdam
Size : 23*30 cms
availability : Available
Price : £225
Pieter Van Der Aa (1659-1733)
Van Der Aa was a prolific publisher, working in Leiden during the first three decades of the eighteenth century. Much of his output consisted of re-issues and re-engravings of map and view plates that he had acquired from earlier mapmakers. Little of his output was original, though that which is has a very distinct style, precisely and elegantly engraved, and is much sought-after today.
Perhaps his most remarkable publication was the elaborate Galerie Agreable Du Monde, issued in 1729, in 66 parts, bound into 27 volumes, which contained about 3,000 plates, apparently limited to 100 sets. Another of his extensive publications was the Cartes Des Itineraires Et Voyages Modernes, a collection of 28 volumes of travel accounts, illustrated with a series of small, but finely engraved maps, often with decorative pictorial title-pieces.
An interesting feature of Van Der Aa's method is that several of his atlases include maps printed within large, separately engraved, elaborately designed mock-frame borders, which were prepared with a blank centre so that individual maps could be over-printed on that area.
Despite the quantity and variety of Van Der Aa's publications they seem to have had only a limited circulation, and so are now scarce.
