HEYDT, Johann Wolffgang.
Allerneuester Geographisch und Topographischer Schau-Platz, von Africa und Ost-Indien.
Nuremberg, C. Tetschner, 1744. Oblong folio (31 x 36.5 cm). With 115 numbered engraved maps and plates, an engraved frontispiece, and an engraved title-page. Contemporary vellum, with the author and title lettered in gold on the spine, red edges. [24], 345, [4] pp.
€ 17,500
First, complete edition of an exceptional work showing the ports and bases of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Asia and Africa. It is one of the finest executed and illustrated publications of a voyage from Europe to the East Indies. The work is illustrated with 115 large and handsome full-page plates and maps. Together are one of the richest iconographic renderings of the Dutch settlements and colonies in Asia and Africa, all beautifully drawn and engraved. Complete copies of this work, with the frontispiece and all the plates, are quite rare.
The illustrations show the influence of the VOC in Africa and Asia (ports, cities, factories, etc.), and are engraved after Johann Wolffgang Heydts (1702-1750) original drawings, which he made during his voyage to the East Indies. The plates are of great topographical and ethnological value. Heydt accompanied them with an account of his journey, which also contains much important information.
Johann Heydt was a German engraver, surveyor and traveller, who was employed by the VOC. He travelled to the East Indies in 1734 and stayed until 1740. His drawings caught the attention of Adriaan Valckenier (1695-1751), Governor General of the VOC, who appointed Heydt in 1738 as artist and architect of the VOC. In this function, he made many views and plans of fortresses, towns, and hamlets. Many of which were included in the present work.
With remnants of a shelfmark label at the foot of the spine, some lines of text have been underlined with brown pencil on a few leaves. The boards are somewhat scratched, with a few small, brown stains, lacking the front blank flyleaf, the work is somewhat browned throughout, with water stains in the lower margin of the first few leaves, very slightly affecting the text, the first and last few leaves are slightly creased and soiled around the edges. Otherwise in good condition. Kainbacher 174; Landwehr VOC 469; Mendelssohn I, pp. 709-710; Rajpal Kubar de Silva and Willemina G.M. Beumer: Illustrations and views of Dutch Ceylon, 1602-1796; not in VD18.
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