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REFINE
Browse All : Images by Joannes Blaeu of Africa
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Author
[Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673, Blommaert, Samuel, 1583-1651]
Note
1 map : copperplate engraving on 6 sheets, hand colour. Method of distance calculation presented in a cartouche in the top right. Small fictive sheet in the bottom left, held above the waves by sea putti, carrying an acknowledgement to Samuel Blommaert for information about the Cabo Blanco and Cabo Negro (Angola). Title in the bottom right, on a cartouche surmounted with a personification of Africa, and flanked by two river gods and various figures in regional dress (North African at the left, Sub-Saharan at the right). Map framed by three descriptions of the continent, in Latin (left), Dutch (bottom) and French (right), each ending with the imprint of Jodocus Hondius. Samuel Blommaert served three terms as director of the Dutch West India Company, and he also oversaw voyages to North America and Africa. His papers proved to be a fruitful source of information about the west coast of Africa, and even after his death in 1651 he continued to be credited by cartographers, particularly for supplying details about the two capes mentioned by Blaeu in his acknowledgement (for a similar posthumous note see Maps K.Top.117.30.). Among the numerous animals depicted in the African interior are two rhinoceros based on Albrecht Dürer's famously misleading woodcut, which for centuries remained the stock image of the animal.
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