Code: 54863
Date : Circa 1680
Copper engraving with later hand colouring. Overall sheet size: 49cms x 40.8cms; image size: 455mm x 308mm. The map shows the position of the Garden of Eden on the rivers Tigris , also named further up as Hiddekel (a river created by God in the pre-Flood world in the land of Eden. It is now extinct, destroyed by the worldwide Flood catastrophe) and near the Tower of Babel. There are many small notations on the map and 'Japho or Joppa from whence Jonas set out to Sea' such as ‘that is the Kingdom of SHEBA from whence the Queen of Sheba came to hear the Wisdom of Solomon and presented him with Gold, Jewels etc . The map covers from Armenia in the North , Cyprus, Egypt to Arabia Felix (Arabia the Happy) in the South and the Persian Sea to the East. Small strengthening top and bottom of centrefold on verso else very good condition.
Richard Blome (1635-1705) was a bookseller, mapseller and publisher. He was also cosmographical Printer to King William III and Cosmographer to Queen Anne. He worked with the engraver Wenceslaus Hollar and produced,'A geographical description of the four parts of the world 1670 which is the first folio world atlas wholly engraved, printed and published in the British Isles. Hollar, together with Richard Palmer also engraved the maps in the Britannia. Blome was granted a royal privilege by Charles II in 1669 giving him copyright protection over his books of geography for twenty-one years, ' to encourage and enable him to finish this his commendable design'. He was one of the pioneers of financing publications by advance subscription, inserting the arms of his patrons on the maps and plates. His career casts light on the difficulties inherent in map-making in the latter part of the seventeenth century. See http://www.mapforum.com/09/9blome.htm and also British Map Engravers Laurence Worms and Ashley Baynton-Williams.
