Acquired From: Gowrie Galleries
Colouring: Coloured
Condition: Good
Confirmed: Yes
Date Acquired: 15/8/2003
Dealers ID No.: M724 (STK 1395.01)
Description: Pieter van der Aa was a publisher, bookseller, and engraver based in Leiden in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He was not a mapmaker in the technical sense, but he produced many maps and views by adapting earlier French and Dutch sources for large multi-volume atlases such as Le Nouveau Théâtre du Monde (1713) and La Galerie Agréable du Monde (1729).nThis planisphere is derived from a wall world map by Jacques Cassini and first published in Paris in 1696. Cassini's original often described as one of the earliest scientific world maps incorporated astronomical determinations of longitude and latitude based on recent observational measurements. Van der Aa reduced the wall map to atlas scale, retaining the polar projection while modifying the ornamental framework. The bilingual titles are relocated to the upper left (French) and upper right (Latin), rather than forming the encircling cartouche found in Cassinis design.nDespite its scientific ambition, the geography reflects early eighteenth-century uncertainties. California appears as an island; New Holland extends conjecturally into the eastern Pacific; and the coasts of New Zealand and New Guinea remain incomplete. These features highlight the limits of European geographic knowledge beyond the North Atlantic.nThe corner vignettes, designed by Jan Goeree and engraved by Gilliam van der Gouwen, represent the four seasons, arranged clockwise from upper left: Aries (spring), Cancer (summer), Libra (autumn), and Capricorn (winter).nA distinctive feature is the forty-three asterisks distributed across the map. A cherub in the left margin explains that these mark locations whose coordinates were determined by astronomical observation, reinforcing the maps claim to empirical claim.nThe plate was later reissued in Reinier and Josua Ottens, Atlas Maior, vol. 1, Amsterdam: Reinier and Josua Ottens, c. 1720, View Record (#27); and in Jean Covens and Cornelis Mortier, Atlas Nouveau, contenant toutes les parties du monde, vol. 1, Amsterdam: Jean Covens and Cornelis Mortier, c. 1742, View Record (#5), reflecting its continued commercial circulation and intellectual prestige.
Engraver: Gouwen, Gilliam van der
First published: Separate publication. Cassini, Jacques. Paris: John Baptise Nolan, 1696
Image Size (cm): 66×53.8
Mapmaker: Aa, Pierre [Pieter] van (1659-1733)
Other states: First 1696, Third 1720, and Fourth c. 1742
Price: A8,500 plus gst
Primary Category: World
Purchase Reference: Inv. 1857
Rarity: R3 Uncommon – dealers can usually obtain a copy
References: Cornelis Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici: Bibliography of Terrestrial, Maritime and Celestial Atlases and Pilot Books Published in the Netherlands up to 1880. Vol. 4, Pieter van der Aa. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1970. Aa 6 (1).nTooley, R. V., intro. The Sheldon Memorial Collection of Early Maps. London: Sotheby & Co., 1964. Map 52, illus. p. 63.nChristies Amsterdam, The Potter Collection…, Amsterdam, 15 October 1992. Lot 192, col. illus. p. 42.
Shirley ID #: 579 Mapping the World
Technique: Copper Engraving
This state: Le Nouveau Théâtre du Monde, ou la Geographie Royale Leiden: Pieter van Aa 1713
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