- Title: Tertia Pars Brabantiæ
- Author: House of Blaeu
- Date: 1640
- Medium: Hand-colored copperplate engraving
- Condition: Very Good Plus - light age toning, issued center fold, minor tear in lower margin with adhesive residue from old repair
- Inches: 24 x 19 1/2 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 60.96 x 49.53 [Paper]
- Product ID: 100508
Map of Brabant and surrounding territories showing the cities of Antwerp, Leuven, and Breda, among others. Title cartouche features the coats of arms of these cities. Map oriented with north corresponding to its right-hand border.
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.