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Copper engraving, 33.5 x 47.5 cms, four views on one sheet, original hand-colour heightened in gold, some oxidisation and offsetting, closed centrefold split, Latin text on verso.
The sheet is not a randon grouping of places: it reads as a voyage around Africa to the East. The principal view on this sheet is of the 'very famous' emporium or market of Calecut, near Madras, which was one of the principal centres of Portugese influence in sixteenth-century India (especially before the capture of Goa), at a time when the Portugese made a fortune from trade with the East. The British only began to make their presence felt in the following century, and Calecut should not be confused with Calcutta which was founded by the East India Company in 1686, about a century after this map was printed. The print is very decorative with the colonial Portugese town rising out of a jungle of palm trees. An elephant with a mahout is watching while boats are constructed on the beach, and Asian and European vessels just offshore are shown in some detail. Beneath the view of Calecut are smaller views of Ormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, Canonor in India, and the Portuguese fortress of El Mina in West Africa. The Civitates Orbis Terrarum - Cities of the whole World - was one of the best-selling illustrated works of the late sixteenth-century, prepared and published over a 45 year period between 1572 and 1617. It was the first systematic city atlas (containing the first views of many towns). Braun wrote the text and Ortelius - who travelled with the artist Joris Hoefnagel - supplied much of the material, which was then engraved by Novellus and Hogenburg. There were a number of editions, mostly with Latin text, but it is extremely difficult (and, according to Koeman ‘of secondary importance’) to differentiate between them, as the state of the plates and their number and order does not vary.
Braun, Georg and Hogenberg, Frans: : [Calecut] Calechut Celeberrimum Indiae Emporium is listed for sale on Bibliophile Bookbase by Bryars & Bryars.
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