The Countie of Radnor by Johannes Jansson

Code: 54389

Date: Circa 1646

Copper engraving with original and later hand colouring. Decorative title cartouche with rustic figure and animals. Scale of distance at bottom right surmounted by mounted gentleman giving orders to possibly a surveyor?. Latin text on verso pp 266/265. Good margins. Overall size  : 52.8cms.x 42.4cms.  Image size : 478mm.x 373mm. Faint brown lines left and right caused by offsetting else good condition.  Flaw reflected in the price.

"As with all productions of the firm of Blaeu, the engraving and layout are all of the highest standard." Rodney Shirley.
Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) was a prominent Dutch geographer and publisher. The son of a herring merchant, Blaeu studied mathematics and astronomy . He studied instrument and globe making with the  Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Blaeu set up shop in Amsterdam, where he sold instruments and globes, published maps. In 1635, he released his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas novus.

Willem died in 1638. He had two sons, Cornelis (1610-1648) and Joan (1596-1673). Joan trained as a lawyer, but then joined his father’s business. After his father’s death, the brothers took over their father’s shop and Joan took on his work as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. Later in life, Joan would modify and greatly expand his father’s Atlas Novus, eventually releasing his masterpiece, the Atlas Maior, between 1662 and 1672.