Atlas

Acquired From: Leen Helmink

Colouring: Coloured

Condition: Fair

Confirmed: 2/1/2025

Date Acquired: 20/3/2023

Description: Frederik de Wit began his career as an apprentice to Willem Blaeu before establishing his own publishing house in Amsterdam in 1648 under the sign De Drie Crabben (the Three Crabs). In 1655, he renamed his shop Witte Pascaert (the White Chart), from which he issued a wide range of cartographic works, including single-sheet maps, wall maps, atlases, and sea charts. Renowned for their refined engraving and vivid hand-colouring, De Wits productions rank among the most admired of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography.nHis major publications include Atlas Belgium (1667), Atlas (c. 1670), Atlas Minor (1670), Zee Atlas (1675), Orbis Maritimus ofte Zee Atlas (1675), and Atlas Major (1690s).nThis titlepage is among the most recognisable images of Dutch Golden Age cartography. Issued for his atlases from the later seventeenth century, it depicts the titan Atlas standing atop the terrestrial globe, bearing the celestial sphere above him. Atlas is shown beneath a starry firmament with the sun and moon emerging from behind the heavens, while drapery resembling mountainous forms surrounds his feetpossibly alluding to his mythological transformation into a mountain range. In early modern symbolism, Atlas was closely associated with geography, endurance, and cosmological order, making him an ideal emblem for a cartographic enterprise. The image functioned not only as a decorative frontispiece but also as a visual statement of the intellectual weight and authority of De Wits atlases.

First published: Atlas maior Amsterdam: Frederick de Wit, 1680

Image Size (cm): 24.5×48.7

Mapmaker: Wit, Frederick de (1610-1698)

Price: 550

Primary Category: Titlepage

Purchase Reference: Ledger

Rarity: R3 Uncommon – dealers can usually obtain a copy

Sheet size (cm): 31×53.5

Technique: Copper Engraving

This state: First

Website: see also here