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Description:This large beautifully hand coloured original 1788 antique map of Scandinavia, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia was engraved in 1788 - the date is engraved in the title - by Jean Nicolas Buache, after Guillaume Delisle, and was published by Delisle's successor Jean Nicolas Buache.
General Definitions:Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stablePaper color : - off whiteAge of map color: - EarlyColors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pinkGeneral color appearance: - AuthenticPaper size: - 35in x 28 1/2in (890mm x 725mm)Plate size: - 32 1/2in x 24 1/2in (825mm x 625mm)Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)
Imperfections:Margins: - NonePlate area: - Light creasingVerso: - None
Background: Before the fifteenth century the people of Southern Europe had little geographical knowledge of the Scandinavian World except from sketchy detail shown in the Catalan Atlas (1375) and on a number of " portolani" embracing Denmark and the southern tip of Norway. It was not until 1427 that a manuscript map prepared about that time by Claudius Clavus (b.1388) a Dane who spent some time in Rome, made available to scholars a tolerable outline of the northern countries and Greenland. That was to remain the best map available for the rest of the century and it was used as the basis for maps of Scandinavia in early printed editions of Ptolemy. Others by Nicolaus Cusanus (1491) and Ehrhard Etzlaub (c. 1492) followed but, needless to say, these are extremely rare; even the later maps by Olaus Magnus and Marcus Jordan, where they have survived at all , are known only by a very few examples. In fact, apart from the rare appearance of an early Ptolemy map, the oldest of Scandinavia which a collector is likely to find are those of Munster's Cosmograhy first published in 1544. In the following centuries the few maps and charts complied in Scandinavia were usually published in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris or Nuremberg, the most important maps often being incorporated in the major Dutch, French & German Atlases. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)Philippe Buache 1700 - 1773 was a French geographer who married the daughter of and trained under the famous French geographer Guillaume Delisle. He succeeded Delisle to the Académie des sciences in 1730. Buache was nominated first geographer of the king in 1729. He established the division of the world by seas and river systems and believed in the concept of a separate southern continent, an hypothesis which was confirmed by later discoveries. In 1754, he published an "Atlas physique." He also wrote several pamphlets.His nephew, Jean Nicolas Buache 1741- 1825, succeeded his uncle in both in his business and as geographer of the king after his death.