BÁV ART Aukciósház és Galéria

68th art auction | Auction of paintings and artworks

Das ist Generale Welt-Beschreibung mit allerley schönen und neuen Land-Carten gezieret das zehende Theil verfaßet Die Alte Welt Folio from Amstelodam (Amsterdam), around 1662, 1 t. copperplate decorative cover, 13 double-page coloured maps (126 p), with the 18th century ex-libris of the Count Rosenberg family. By the beginning of the 17th century, Amsterdam had become one of the most important commercial and cultural centre of the world. The economic growth of the Netherlands and its rise as a maritime world-power was followed by the upsurge of culture and arts. Intellectual life prospered in the city, and Amsterdam became one of the most significant centres of European cartography. The knowledge of good-quality, accurate maps was essential for seafaring, and the cultivated and wealthy citizenry was also curious about the world. Teaching geometry and maths and putting them to practice became prevalent in education, and people grew more and more interested geographic discoveries. There was a high demand for copperplate maps and representative luxury-quality atlases among the citizenry. The first such work was the atlas of Abraham Ortelius published in Antwerpen in 1570 (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum). It had been a huge success and was reprinted many times. In the next century, Amsterdam became the centre of atlas- and map publishers. These beautifully coloured and bound, luxurious atlases became one of the fine luxury products of the age, and were also much-desired status symbols. Only people with good financial foundations could purchase them, and cultivated, wealthy citizens did all in their power to obtain them. Starting from the 1630s, grave competition began between the publisher dynasties of Amsterdam (officines) on which of them can make the most beautiful and largest atlas, thus winning over the market and cutting out the competitors. This rivalry yielded many beautifully realised atlases that are still among the finest today. The two largest officines, Blaeu and Janssonius-Hondius were increasing the sizes and number of volumes of their atlases for decades in an attempt to outrun each other. If Blaeu published a two-volume atlas containing 210 maps, Janssonius soon came up with a three-volume one containing 300 maps. During this “battle”, they had no qualms about copying each other’s maps either. By 1658, the competition seemed to even out, with both publishers publishing a six-volume series of atlases titles Atlas Novus and containing 403 and 450 maps. The Janssonius officine published its finest and most spectacular series of atlases, the first great atlas (Atlas maior) using said work, with the title “Novus Atlas absolutissimus”, in ten- and eleven- volume versions, in folio size. The two series contained 500 and 550 maps, and it was the first atlas that adopted Mercator’s idea in attempting to present the entire globe and the universe, providing detailed descriptions of each country, city, the sky, the seas and the oceans. The atlas displayed in our auction is the 10th volume of this series, presenting the antique world, and in particular Greece in detail. Knowledge of the antique world and Greek culture was essential elements of a humanist’s erudition at the time. The atlas’ beautifully coloured cover and maps, its typography and gilded vellum binding lift it among the finest atlases the Janssonius workshop ever created. It is an exceptionally rare issue, and has never before appeared in an auction in Hungary to the best of our knowledge

2667 EUR