Jan Jannson (1596-1664) was the great rival of the Blaeu family of publishers. In 1630 Blaeu published his ‘Appendix’ which was a challenge to the pre-dominance of the Mercator-Hondius atlases of the day. A publishing race ensued and Jodocus Hondius joined forces with Jansson who co-published and distributed the ‘Atlas Novus’. It was expanded over the years to six volumes and eventually formed 12 volumes in the ‘Atlas Major’.

Jansson often conceived of ideas in cartography prior to that of Blaeu. As might be expected many of the plates had been issued in other works. In 1653 Jansson had acquired the plates to the six volume Braun and Hogenberg ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’ from Abraham Hogenberg. Most of them were amended before use and further new plates were engraved, particularly for the Low Countries. Some were by the noted Wenceslaus Hollar. The complete work consists of 8 volumes and exactly 500 plates. It is exceedingly rare, the only example off the complete set appearing in action we could trace occurred in Paris in 2007. It sold for 309,000 Europs. The first two volumes were these, on the Low Countries, this being the first edition.

Notable plates include the folding birds-eye plan of Antwerp. Several other town plans incorporate a view as an inset. Koeman stated that the parts ‘can also be treated as individual parts, but those of the Netherlands and Germany are both in two parts which belong together’, as here. The plates had a long history passing into the hands of his son-in-law Jansson van Waesberge, Frederick de Wit, Pieter van de Aa and the firm of Covens and Mortier. Provenance: Nico Israel collection. Koeman (1967-70) II, Ja 12; Shirley (2004) T.Jan 16a; Van der Krogt IV-1, 42:11.1-2.