Subject: World
Period: 1687 (dated)
Publication:
Color: Hand Color
Size:
11.5 x 11.5 inches
29.2 x 29.2 cm
Very rare, unusual pair of hemisphere maps engraved by Heinrich Irsinger. In the Western Hemisphere, California appears as an Island with the coastline of Anian to the northeast of the island. In the South Pacific, New Zealand's western coastline is depicted as well as a group of Polynesian islands. In the Eastern Hemisphere, East Asia is truncated in the north and Australia is partially mapped. In Africa, the Nile is shown emerging from a single large lake south of the Equator. Each sheet is decorated with very unusual figures representing the natives of the continents and exotic animals. According to Shirley these maps appears in Happel's "Mundus Mirabilis" (1687) and "Historia Moderna Europae" (1692) and may have been included in other works published by Matthaeus Wagner.
References: Shirley #535A; Shirley, Map Collector Vol. 64, p. 4.
Condition: A
Scattered foxing in margins with a couple of very faint spots in map. Fine later coloring with gold highlights.