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Bordeaux Region of France: A 17th Century Hand-Colored Map by Mercator/Hondius

Creator: Gerard Mercator
Offered by: Timeless Intaglio – Rare Prints, Maps & Books

Description
A 17th century hand-colored map entitled "Bourdelois Pais de Medoc et la Prevoste de Born" by Gerard Mercator and Henricus Hondius, published in their 'Atlas Minor' in Amsterdam in 1635. It is focused on the southwestern coast of France and a small portion of the northern coast of Spain, extending from the Gironde River to the north and northern Spain in the south. It includes the Bay of Biscay and the cities of Bourdeaux and Bayonne in the Bordeaux wine district. The map is oriented with the west to the lower portion of the map.

The map is embellished with two strapwork cartouches containing the name of the region and a scale, as well as a sea monster and a sailing ship. The map is beautifully hand colored with wide margins. It is presented in an archival cream colored mat measuring 13.5" wide x 10.75" high and the map sheet measures 11.25" wide x 7" high. There is English text on the verso. The map is in excellent condition.

Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) is one of the most famous cartographers of all time. He was born in Flanders and moved to Duisburg from Leuven in the Netherlands, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. In addition to producing important maps and globes, he invented a projection on maps that presented all parallels and meridians at right angles to each other, with the distance between the parallels extending towards the poles, allowing accurate latitude and longitude calculation and navigational routes to be drawn using straight lines. This was an important technological advance for navigation at sea, as this allowed seafarers to plot their course without having to adjust their course based on frequent compass readings. This has become know as Mercator projection on maps produced by subsequent cartographers to this day. He is also the first to use the term “atlas”, which was first used to describe his collection of maps gathered in one volume. The Mercator atlas was published in 1595, a year after Mercator’s death by his heirs.

Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) was a prominent globe maker and map engraver from Ghent (Flanders). After spending some time in London, he established his business in Amsterdam in 1593. Hondius bought the plates of Gerard Mercator in 1604 and added around 40 of his own maps in an atlas that he first published in 1606, preserving Mercator's name. After his death in 1612 in Amsterdam, the business was continued by his sons Jodocus II and Henricus, who published the English edition of the Mercator and Hondius Atlas Minor in 1635 that contained this map.

More Information

Documentation:	Signed
Period:	Pre 18th Century
Condition:	Good.
Creation Date:	1635
Styles / Movements:	Traditional
Incollect Reference #:	580988

Dimensions

W.	14 in;	H.	12 in;
W.	35.56 cm;	H.	30.48 cm;

Message from Seller:

Timeless Intaglio is an online gallery of rare and collectable antiquarian prints, maps and books. Although we specialize in all forms of vintage printed works on paper, the majority were created with the intaglio method of transferring ink from a plate, usually copper, to paper with a technique utilizing pressure generated by a press. Email us directly: rbreiman@timelessintaglio.com

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