Catalog Archive
Auction 103, Lot 464

"Tab. II. Asiae Sarmatiam Asiaticam repraesentans", Ptolemy/Mercator

Subject: Caucasus

Period: 1698 (published)

Publication: Claudii Ptolemaei's Atlas Tabulae geographicae Orbis Terrarum

Color: Black & White

Size:
18 x 14 inches
45.7 x 35.6 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

Lovely map of the region between the Black and Caspian seas and north to the Hyperborie Montes and south to include the Bosphorus Strait. Mercator originally published this map in his 1578 edition of Ptolemy's great Geography. Although he is most renowned today for the projection he popularized and for first using the term Atlas for a collection of maps, he devoted much of his life to his Ptolemaic maps. The maps were beautifully engraved as nearly as possible to their original form and embellished with fine cartouches and cultural scenes. This map is from an 1698 edition. The ornamental border of the map first appeared in this edition.

References:

Condition: A+

Estimate: $180 - $230

Sold for: $130

Closed on 6/11/2003

Archived