Lot 518

Valk, Gerard and Pieter Schenk.

Bidding Closed

Description

Atlantis sylloge compendiosa: cuius in chartarum serie, hic notes quod hasce: a septentrione usque in Austrum, descendendo per earum latitudines. Amsterdam: G. Valck and P. Schenk, 1709

Folio (530 x 337mm.), additional engraved title, printed title with contents, 99 double-page engraved maps (index including title as first map), contemporary body colour, contemporary Dutch sprinkled calf, spine gilt in compartments with astrolabe tool, a few very small wormholes at lower edge affecting title and first 13 maps and very small wormhole in upper margin of last 10 maps (not affecting engraved area), spine ends repaired, corners repaired

Provenance

C.J. Tencate, bookplate; Antiquariaat Meijer Elte, The Hague, sold to Lord Wardington, 13 June 1983, 40,000 florins (with another work)

Literature

Koeman III, Val 1

Catalogue Note

Gerard Valk and his son Leonard were printers, engravers and globe-makers in Amsterdam, closely linked by marriage with the Schenk family with whom they also had a long business association in map engraving and publishing.

With their co-publishers, the Schenk family was among the most prolific and best-known publishers in eighteenth-century Amsterdam. Many of the atlases they produced were primarily reissues from earlier printing plates that the family purchased from other cartographers. Their work, though often not original, is finely presented and demonstrates the precision and elegance associated with maps and engravings produced in the period.

"The first issue is thought to be about 1702, and in this, as in the present copy, the vast majority of maps bear the imprint of Valk and Schenk, as does the atlas of Cellarius produced in 1708, and David Mortier’s Atlas anglois in 1715 [see following lot]. The maps with dates are from 1683, 1703, 1705 and 1707" (Wardington Catalogue).