Seventeen Provinces – Philips Galle + Johann Baptist Vrients + Abraham Ortelius, 1609/1612
€3.450
“Inferioris Germaniae Provinciarum Nova Descriptio” (The Provinces of the Low Countries Newly Described). Copper engraving made by Philips Galle and published in 1609 or 1612 by Johann Baptist Vrients, as part of Abraham Ortelius’s atlas “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum”, the first printed atlas of the world. Here in a second state (of four). Coloured by a later hand. Size approx. 41 × 56 cm.
With the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, a de facto separation arose between the Northern and Southern Netherlands, and the Seventeen Provinces split into two. A political and military border now divided them into the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands.
Due to emigration and the changing political situation, the economic center of gravity shifted northward. The Dutch Revolt against the Spanish continued, while at the same time, religious divisions split the entire continent. Europe had become a vast theatre of war, and the conflicts were only resolved in 1648 with the Peace of Münster, in which Spain officially recognized the sovereignty of the Dutch Republic The separation between the northern and southern parts of the Netherlands was then made permanent.
Nevertheless, maps of the Seventeen Provinces continued to appear until around 1800. This was due in part to the enormous cost of field surveying and engraving required for new mapmaking, but also to the fact that the eastern and southern borders of the Seven Provinces remained ill-defined.
The elaborate cartouche displays the coats of arms of all seventeen provinces and is flanked on the left by Mars, the god of war, and on the right by Mercury, the god of commerce. The text reads:
“Philip II, King of Spain and of the Indies, granted sovereignty over these provinces and over the Duchy of Burgundy to Isabella Clara Eugenia on May 6, 1598. She later married Albert, Duke of Austria, now the lawful sovereign of the Netherlands.” In the right-hand column, “Johann Baptist Vrients dedicates this map in friendship to Franciscus Sweertius of Antwerp, great admirer of Classical Antiquity, on September 1, 1606.”
Depicted below the cartouche, though in smaller scale, but of great symbolic importance to the Low Countries, is Neptune, god of the sea, regally seated on a sea horse, accompanied by a triton, with a billowing cloak.
Literature:
- Marcel van den Broecke (2011), “Ortelius Atlas Maps”, Ort59
- H.A.M. van der Heijden (1998), “Oude kaarten der Nederlanden 1548-1795”, no. 32
- Hans Spikmans “Germania Inferior, cartobibliografie van de Zeventien Provinciën der Nederlanden 1548-1831”, no. 24-2.4
Price: Euro 3.450,-
