Art

An 18th-century map of northern Africa by Andreas Cellarius, including the Sahara desert and the mythical Mountains of the Moon. The Dutch-German cartographer and cosmographer Andreas Cellarius (c.1596-1665) had, by 1625, moved to Amsterdam to become a schoolmaster, and from 1637 was headmaster of the local Latin school in Hoorn. During his time there he published several works, of which the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660) is his best known, and considered one of the most beautiful examples of a celestial atlas. The present map originally comes from Cellarius's Geographia Antiqua iuxta et nova, a smaller comparative geography. It was adapted by an English schoolmaster Samuel Patrick (1684-1748) into a map-rich English-language edition under the title Geographia antiqua (first published 1731), which was popular enough to be reproduced multiple times during the 18th and 19th centuries. It included small-scale maps of the two hemispheres and twenty-four maps of the regions of the ancient world. This example comes from an edition published in 1794. Original copper engraving (31 x 21 cm), hand coloured. Very good condition. In very good condition.