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Pascaarte van alle de Zècusten van Europa [Sea chart of all the sea‑coasts of Europe]. Amsterdam: [after 1621].
Details
BLAEU, Willem Janszoon (1571-1638)
Pascaarte van alle de Zècusten van Europa [Sea chart of all the sea‑coasts of Europe]. Amsterdam: [after 1621].
The map from Johannes Vermeer’s The Geographer: the only recorded example printed on vellum remaining in private hands.
Blaeu’s Pascaarte van alle de Zècusten van Europa is a major monument of 17th-century Dutch cartography. Issued contemporaneously with the establishment of the Dutch West India Company, it is closely tied to the Dutch Republic’s surge in maritime power and commerce, capturing advanced early‑17th‑century knowledge of European and North Atlantic waters (including improved Greenland detail and the omission of persistent myths like ‘Friesland’). Visually and technically, it follows a portolan-style language of navigation: dense coastal place-names, relatively sparse inland detail, and seas crisscrossed by rhumb lines radiating from compass roses. Interior lands and open seas are decorated with national coats of arms, ships, and emblematic figures including elephants and polar bears.
As a nautical chart designed for mariners, it presents a sweeping survey of coastal Europe: from Novaya Zemlya and the Arctic approaches, down past Norway into the Baltic, through the North Sea and around the British Isles and Atlantic coasts, and into the Mediterranean (with an additional inset for the eastern Mediterranean), while also stretching into the North Atlantic to include Iceland, Spitsbergen, Greenland, and the Azores. Its practical use is underlined by Johannes Vermeer, who placed a copy of the chart in the background of The Geographer (1668-1669; Städel Museum) alongside a globe and other working instruments of the geographer’s craft. A working instrument of the Dutch maritime century, this is a chart at the intersection of navigation, empire, and art, rendered with a decorative ambition that appealed to a Golden Age master.
This example belongs to the first state of two, easily distinguishable by the spelling of ‘Pascaarte’ with a ‘c’ in the present state and a ‘k’ in the second. Examples of this state are known to have been printed on paper as well as on costlier but more durable vellum such as in the present map. Günter Schilder records a total of 9 copies extant (seven on vellum and two on paper) and another on paper is known to have been offered by a dealer in the USA. Besides the present copy, examples printed on vellum are held in institutions in Belgium (Stadsarchief Antwerpen), Hungary (National Széchényi Library), Germany (Berlin State Library; University and State Library Darmstadt; Baden State Library; Herzogin Anna Amalia- Bibliothek), and France (Bibliothèque Nationale). Recorded examples on paper are known in the Netherlands (Amsterdam University Library) and Germany (Stopp Collection).
References: James A. Welu, ‘Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources’, in: Art Bulletin 57 (1975), pp. 541-44; Günter Schilder, Monumenta Cartographica IV, Alphen aan den Rijn 1993, 45.1 pp. 100-101.
Engraved map hand-coloured in outline on single sheet of vellum, overall size 687 x 868mm, oriented to the west, showing the seacoasts of Europe and North Africa, extending from Novaya Zemlya and the Gulf of Sydra in the east to the Azores and the west coast of Greenland in the west, and from the northern coast of Spitsbergen in the north to the Canary Islands in the south, with scale cartouches at each corner, large title cartouche topped by armillary sphere and the motto INDEFESSUS AGENDO at lower centre, four compasses, title, coats of arms and vignette embellishments all with partial hand colour (some general light soiling and staining, light abrasion with minor repair to an occasional diagonal line, small modern repairs). Provenance: PIASA, Paris, July 16th 2010 Collections du Musee de la Citadelle Vauban, Belle-Ile-en-Mer, et a divers.
Pascaarte van alle de Zècusten van Europa [Sea chart of all the sea‑coasts of Europe]. Amsterdam: [after 1621].
The map from Johannes Vermeer’s The Geographer: the only recorded example printed on vellum remaining in private hands.
Blaeu’s Pascaarte van alle de Zècusten van Europa is a major monument of 17th-century Dutch cartography. Issued contemporaneously with the establishment of the Dutch West India Company, it is closely tied to the Dutch Republic’s surge in maritime power and commerce, capturing advanced early‑17th‑century knowledge of European and North Atlantic waters (including improved Greenland detail and the omission of persistent myths like ‘Friesland’). Visually and technically, it follows a portolan-style language of navigation: dense coastal place-names, relatively sparse inland detail, and seas crisscrossed by rhumb lines radiating from compass roses. Interior lands and open seas are decorated with national coats of arms, ships, and emblematic figures including elephants and polar bears.
As a nautical chart designed for mariners, it presents a sweeping survey of coastal Europe: from Novaya Zemlya and the Arctic approaches, down past Norway into the Baltic, through the North Sea and around the British Isles and Atlantic coasts, and into the Mediterranean (with an additional inset for the eastern Mediterranean), while also stretching into the North Atlantic to include Iceland, Spitsbergen, Greenland, and the Azores. Its practical use is underlined by Johannes Vermeer, who placed a copy of the chart in the background of The Geographer (1668-1669; Städel Museum) alongside a globe and other working instruments of the geographer’s craft. A working instrument of the Dutch maritime century, this is a chart at the intersection of navigation, empire, and art, rendered with a decorative ambition that appealed to a Golden Age master.
This example belongs to the first state of two, easily distinguishable by the spelling of ‘Pascaarte’ with a ‘c’ in the present state and a ‘k’ in the second. Examples of this state are known to have been printed on paper as well as on costlier but more durable vellum such as in the present map. Günter Schilder records a total of 9 copies extant (seven on vellum and two on paper) and another on paper is known to have been offered by a dealer in the USA. Besides the present copy, examples printed on vellum are held in institutions in Belgium (Stadsarchief Antwerpen), Hungary (National Széchényi Library), Germany (Berlin State Library; University and State Library Darmstadt; Baden State Library; Herzogin Anna Amalia- Bibliothek), and France (Bibliothèque Nationale). Recorded examples on paper are known in the Netherlands (Amsterdam University Library) and Germany (Stopp Collection).
References: James A. Welu, ‘Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources’, in: Art Bulletin 57 (1975), pp. 541-44; Günter Schilder, Monumenta Cartographica IV, Alphen aan den Rijn 1993, 45.1 pp. 100-101.
Engraved map hand-coloured in outline on single sheet of vellum, overall size 687 x 868mm, oriented to the west, showing the seacoasts of Europe and North Africa, extending from Novaya Zemlya and the Gulf of Sydra in the east to the Azores and the west coast of Greenland in the west, and from the northern coast of Spitsbergen in the north to the Canary Islands in the south, with scale cartouches at each corner, large title cartouche topped by armillary sphere and the motto INDEFESSUS AGENDO at lower centre, four compasses, title, coats of arms and vignette embellishments all with partial hand colour (some general light soiling and staining, light abrasion with minor repair to an occasional diagonal line, small modern repairs). Provenance: PIASA, Paris, July 16th 2010 Collections du Musee de la Citadelle Vauban, Belle-Ile-en-Mer, et a divers.
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