Atlas title page – Gerard de Lairesse, 1688

ALLEGORICAL TITLE PAGE BY GERARD DE LAIRESSE, 1668

“Kleine Atlas” [Small Atlas], title page designed and etched by Gerard de Lairesse in 1668. An impression of the first, as yet untitled state of the plate, later inscribed by hand with a title and the address of map dealer and geographer Christiaan Gebhard, ca. 1727–1735. With original hand colouring. Approx. 52.5 × 31.3 cm (sheet).

At the centre stands the mythological Atlas, carrying the globe on his shoulders with both arms. To his left floats the winged goddess Fama, blowing her trumpet; to the right, Neptune sits upon a second globe, holding his trident. Together, the three figures associate the composition with the world, the seas, and the fame that geographical discovery and knowledge could bring.

In the foreground at left sits Cybele, here personifying the earth, recognisable by her crown in the form of city walls and towers and the key in her hand. Beside her is Geographia, the personification of geography. With pen and compass she works at a drawing board, surrounded by surveying and cartographic instruments. A lion rests at her feet. De Lairesse thus brought together earth, navigation, surveying and cartography in a single monumental allegory of the knowledge and description of the world.

Gerard de Lairesse (1641–1711), one of the leading classicist artists of late seventeenth-century Amsterdam, created the etching. In the first state, the rectangular panel on the pedestal was still without a printed title. In the second state, a title was added here together with the address of Nicolaes Visscher II, who used the print as the title page for his Atlas Minor.

In this impression, however, the original title panel remained unprinted and was later filled in with brown ink: “Kleine Atlas tot Amsterdam by C. Gebhard Geograph”. This refers to Christiaan Gebhard, who in 1727 was established in Amsterdam as a bookseller and sea-chart dealer on the Texelse Kade, at the sign of “de Lootsman” (“The Pilot”). Among other things, he sold globes, spheres and mathematical books, and also offered to produce geographical and geometrical drawings.

Price: Euro 475,-