DE EILANDEN MALDIVES
£225
Original & Rare copper-engraving, uncoloured as published. A fine and decorative map of the Maldives, many islands of the atolls of the Maldives are named. The map encludes as well the neighbouring southern tip of India with Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean towards Sumatra and the Street of Malacca. Ornated in the lower right corner with an allegoric title cartouche and a scale of mileage. The famous Dutch publisher and mapmaker Pieter Van der Aa (1659 Leiden - 1733 Leiden) published 'during the period 1682-1733, an enormous quantity of printed matter' (Koeman). This map was actually published in the first edition of his travelbooks 'Naauwkeurige versameling der gedenk-waardigste zee en landreysen na Oost en West-Indien', in Leiden 1706-08.
This map illustrates the region Diego Lopez de Sequeira visited in 1518 when he became the governor of the Portuguese possessions in India.
Good hand colour.
Very good condition.
Ref: cf. Shirley (BL Atlases) G.AA-1a #9.
code : M3829
Cartographer : Pieter Van Der AA
Date : 1707 Leiden
Size : 15.5*28cms
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.
