Beschreibung:

BLAEU, Willem and Johannes. Toonneel des Aerdrijcx, ofte Nieuwe Atlas . Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu, 1649-50-48. Volumes I-IV, 2° (510 x 330mm.). Dutch text, half-title to volume I (margin torn and restored), 4 hand-coloured engraved titles, 3 heightened in gilt, letterpress title overslips to volumes II-IV, 2 section titles, heightened in gilt, 334 maps, mostly double-page, all hand-coloured in outline, with decorative coloured cartouches and coats of arms, 6 folding, illustrations, some hand-coloured. (Several maps with vertical creases near centre folds, some light staining to margins, several spotted, map of Germania with portion of lower margin torn away, a few maps with clean tears to margins at lower centre folds.) Original publisher's vellum, panelled in gilt with central gilt arabesques and corner-pieces (slightly soiled and rubbed), ties, several lacking, g.e. Koeman cf.Bl 29B; Bl 30A; Bl 39C; Bl 45B. A FINE SET of the first four volumes of the Theatrum , comprising volume I: World, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, germany and Holland; II: France, Spain, Africa, Asia and the Americas; III: Italy, Greece, Scotland and Ireland; IV: England and Wales. The collation of this set varies considerably from Koeman's examples; volume I does not have the four replacement maps, the maps of Borysthenes and Lithuania folded as in the copy at the Royal Library, Brussels; volume II includes the map of China, has the order of the maps of Aragon and Navarre reversed, and collates similarly to Bl 28; volume III has the addition of the section title and maps of Scotland and Ireland normally bound in the 1647 Dutch issue of volume IV, cf. Bl 45B; volume IV collates according to Bl 45B, but the section of Scotland and Ireland bound in the previous volume, and the title is dated the following year. (4)