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Persia: A 16th Century Hand-Colored Map by Mercator and Hondius

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

Description
This is a 16th century hand-colored map entitled "Persia" by Gerard Mercator and Henricus Hondius, published in Amsterdam in 1579. It is focused on the modern day Iran and includes the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf and portions of the Arabian Sea, northern India, modern day Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Qatar and Afghanistan. There is a decorative strapwork title cartouche in the lower right..

This beautifully hand-colored map is presented in a speckled sage colored wood frame with gold colored inner and outer trim and a light tan mat. It is glazed with reVue UV conservation glass. The frame measures 9.63' high, 11.63" wide and 0.75" deep. The visible portions of the map measure 3.38" high and 4.5" wide.There is a small hole and adjacent short tears in the lower right, but the map is otherwise in very good 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.
Styles / Movements:	Traditional
Incollect Reference #:	604173

Dimensions

W.	11.63 in;	H.	9.63 in;	D.	0.75 in;
W.	29.54 cm;	H.	24.46 cm;	D.	1.91 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