The Sunderland Collection

Asia

Ottoman Empire

Asia Minor

Cyprus

Palestine

Arabia

Persia

India and Indonesia

Mughal Empire

Maluku Islands

Tartary

China, Korea, and Japan

Pecheli [Hebei province]

Shanxi

Shaanxi

Shandong

Henan

Sichuan

Huguang

Jiangxi

Jiangnan

Zhejiang

Fujian

Guangdong

Guangxi

Guizhou

Yunnan

Japan

It is estimated that 1,550 copies of all five editions were printed, which leads to an estimation that 5.4 million pages of text were printed, and 950,000 copper plate impressions. Such a vast undertaking in capital and labour was reflected in the price of the work, with the French edition the most expensive at 450 guilders. The French ‘Grand 

’ was the largest of the five editions, with the volume concerning France divided into two books to make a total of twelve volumes. The atlas was the most expensive book of its day; the average price of a house in Amsterdam at the time of publication was 500 guilders.

Volume I

Volume II

Volume III

Volume IV

Volume V

Volume VI

Volume VII

Volume VIII

Volume IX

Volume X

Volume XI

Volume XII

The double hemisphere map of the world was newly prepared for the atlas by 

 himself, perhaps the first world map in an atlas to portray the Copernican solar system. Of note is the eleventh volume, with twenty-eight maps devoted to China and the Far East, compiled by the Italian Jesuit Martino Martini (1614–1661), the first atlas of regional China produced in the Western world.

The ‘Atlas Maior’ in its various editions was one of the most influential atlases ever published. It was justly famed for its production values, its high typographic standard, and the quality of its engraving, ornamentation, binding, and colouring. The atlas frequently served as the official gift of the Dutch Republic to princes and other authorities. It is one of the most lavish and highly prized of all seventeenth-century illustrated books. In its sheer size and scale, it surpassed all other atlases then in circulation, including the efforts of his great predecessors Abraham Ortelius and Gerard Mercator.

In this work, Blaeu was able to synthesize the world of the Dutch Golden Age in a single publication, an endeavour unparalleled for centuries. In 1630 he published, with his father Willem Janszoon Blaeu, his first atlas, the ‘Atlas Appendix’. Over the next thirty years, publishing rivalries with Henricus Hondius and Johannes Janssonius would spur the production of ever larger and more lavish editions. Over the coming decades, the atlas was published simultaneously in five different languages: Latin, French, Dutch, Spanish, and German. Of these, the French ‘Grand Atlas’ was the largest of the five editions, with the volume concerning France divided into two books to make a total of twelve volumes.

The Blaeu family is synonymous with the finest mapmaking of the seventeenth century and particularly between 1570-1670 at a time when Dutch publishing held a monopoly on the market. Following Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s death in 1638, his son Joan Blaeu expanded the ‘Atlas Novus’ into this ‘Atlas Maior’. To finance this work, Joan Blaeu announced in 1662 that he would auction his bookselling business. The creation of the five editions of the work took six years, from 1659 to 1665.

An exceptionally splendid and attractive example of 'the greatest and finest atlas ever published' (Verwey). The ‘Atlas Maior’ in its various editions was the one of the largest atlases ever published. It was justly famed for its high quality production values, typographic standard, and the quality of its engraving, ornamentation, binding, and colouring. The atlas frequently served as the official gift of the Dutch Republic to princes and other authorities. It is one of the most lavish and highly prized of all seventeenth-century illustrated books. “In its sheer size and scale it surpassed all other atlases then in circulation, including the efforts of his great predecessors Ortelius and Mercator” (Brotton, 2012).

Of particular note is the double-hemisphere map of the world, newly prepared for the atlas by Joan Blaeu himself. Jerry Brotton suggests that this is the first world map in an atlas to portray the Copernican solar system.

The Great Atlas

Le Grand Atlas

Blaeu's 'Atlas Major'

or, the Blaeu Cosmography, in Which the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky, are Accurately Described

ou Cosmographie Blaviane, en Laquelle est Exactement Descritte la Terre, la Mer, et le Ciel.