Catalog Archive
Auction 124, Lot 633

"Tab. III. Asiae, in qua Colchis, Iberia, Albania, ac Armenia Maior", Ptolemy/Mercator

Subject: Caucasus

Period: 1730 (published)

Publication: Claudii Ptolemaei's Atlas Tabulae geographicae Orbis Terrarum

Color: Hand Color

Size:
17.8 x 13.5 inches
45.2 x 34.3 cm
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Lovely Ptolemaic map of the Caucasus region and what is now Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, eastern Turkey and northern Iran. 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. The map is embellished with a fierce sea monster in the Black Sea and a strapwork title cartouche in the Caspian Sea.

References: Mickwitz & Miekkavaara (Nordenskiold-2) #235-9.

Condition: B

There are several unobtrusive ink notations and some faint foxing.

Estimate: $230 - $300

Unsold

Closed on 5/7/2008

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