- Author: Joan Blaeu
- Date: c. 1660
- Medium: Hand-colored copperplate engraving
- Condition: Very Good - light wear along issued center fold, age toning and foxing
- Inches: 22 x 17 [Image]
- Centimeters: 55.9 x 43.2 [Image]
- Product ID: 22401
Map of the region of Gothia, Sweden, including parts of Denmark and the Baltic Sea.
Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu (1571-1638), and later his heirs, dominated the world cartographic landscape for much of the seventeenth century. Blaeu studied under Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, one of the major figures in the history of modern astronomy. After returning to the Low Countries from Denmark in the late 1590s, Blaeu set up shop as a cartographer and globe maker. He produced numerous atlases, and in 1633 became the official mapmaker of the Dutch East India Company, the megacorporation which, thanks to Dutch naval prowess, controlled the seventeenth-century global economy. Numerous depictions of Blaeu maps appear in the work of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Blaeu's sons, cartographers Cornelis and Joan (or Johannes) Blaeu, took over the family business after their father's death.