Southeast Asia, wall-map--Danckerts, Justus (I).

Large engraved wall-map on four sheets joined, 860 x 1050mm., in fine contemporary hand-colour, folded for inclusion in a contemporary composite atlas

Schilder, Australia Unveiled, map 75 (the Allard prototype); Tooley Landmarks, p.259 (ill.: detail of Australia, with the imprint masked on the reproduction); Tooley: Early Maps of Australia The Dutch Period, 52 (ill.: detail of Australia).

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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Rare wall-map of South-East Asia and the Indies, probably first published by Justus Danckerts, c.1670, shortly after he took over control of his family business. Geographically the map seems to be based on the fine wall-map of the same extent published by Huytch Allard, attributed by Schilder to 1652, with some of the decorative elements reminiscent of Blaeu’s folio atlas map of the region, first published in 1634 and in circulation into the 1660s.

In the earliest state traced (in the British Library) the map bears Danckerts’s imprint in the bottom right-hand corner; the BL example is illustrated in the two Tooley books noted below. References to further examples have been traced to the French Archives Nationales (NN/169/71) and National Library of Australia (Call no. MAP s 016.911 MAP, though not found in the online catalogue).

This later state has Danckerts’s imprint erased, and the second title substituted, presumably once the plates passed out of the hands of the family, in the stock disposals of the second decade of the eighteenth century.

Although the Danckerts family were notable mapmakers and publishers, they were overshadowed by their rivals Nicolaas Visscher and Frederick de Wit, so their materials did not receive the distribution they deserve; Koeman (III, on the Danckerts family) does refer to them maintaining a fine stock of wall-maps. It is believed that the plate subsequently emerged in the hands of the van Keulens, although no example has been traced for comparison.

This example of this rare map owes its survival, and fine state of preservation to having previously been folded and bound in a contemporary composite atlas. See also illustration on lower cover.