Gerard Mercator - Frontispice de l'atlas Mercator Hondius - Gravure sur cuivre réhaussée à la main

Old copper-engraved frontispiece, hand-colored by Gerard Mercator, published by Henricus Hondius in 1633 in Amsterdam in the Mercator-Hondius atlas.

It shows an architectural setting with columns, whose entablature bears the name Gerardi Mercatoris.
In the center, under an arch, Atlas holds the terrestrial globe. The French title of the atlas is printed in a cartouche framed in yellow.
At the top, two putti support an armillary sphere on a balustrade, between the figures of Mexicana and Africa. The latter is accompanied by a crocodile.

The four lateral niches house allegorical figures labeled Europa, Asia, Peruana and Magalanica. At the bottom are the inscriptions “Editio ultima” and the address of Henricus Hondius dated 1633. Two blue library stamps are affixed beneath the engraving.

- Dimensions: on sheet: 25.3 x 44.4 cm; on plate: 23.4 x 38.9 cm
- Condition: Good overall condition for an engraving of this period. Presence of a few brown spots and stains. See photos for more details.

Atlas Mercator-Hondius
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The atlas known as the “Mercator-Hondius” reprises the work of Gerard Mercator, whose copper plates were bought by Jodocus Hondius in 1604. This French edition of 1633 is signed by his son Henricus Hondius and his son-in-law Joannes Janssonius, who enlarged it with new maps.

Gerard Mercator
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Gerard Mercator (Gerard de Cremer) was born in 1512 in Rupelmonde, Flanders, and died in 1594 in Duisburg. Trained at Leuven, notably with Gemma Frisius, he was a geographer, cartographer and maker of instruments and globes. He published a terrestrial globe (1541), a celestial globe (1551), a map of Europe (1554) and a planisphere (1569) whose projection bears his name today. His Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes, published in 1595 by his son Rumold after his death, is the work in which the term “atlas” is used for the first time in the modern sense. Jodocus Hondius bought the plates in 1604 and produced a series of augmented editions, which his son Henricus Hondius continued in Amsterdam.