This item has been sold, but you can get on the Waitlist to be notified if another example becomes available, or purchase a digital scan.

1730 Seutter Map of Luxembourg and Eastern Belgium

DucatusLuxemburg-seutter-1730
$200.00
Ducatus Luxemburg. - Main View
Processing...

1730 Seutter Map of Luxembourg and Eastern Belgium

DucatusLuxemburg-seutter-1730

Seutters depiction of the Duchy of Luxembourg.

Title


Ducatus Luxemburg.
  1730 (undated)     20.5 x 23.5 in (52.07 x 59.69 cm)     1 : 320000

Description


This is a lovely 1730 map of Luxembourg and surroundings by the important Augsburg map publisher Georg Matthaus Seutter. It extends from Ulmen in Germany west to Rocroi in France and from Amneville, France north as far as Huy in Belgium, covering all of Luxembourg, the eastern parts of Belgium as well as parts of Germany and France. An inset of Luxembourg City in included in the lower right quadrant. The map is color coded according to territories and notes several important cities, rivers and towns with mountains and forests rendered beautifully in profile. An elaborate title cartouche decorates the lower left quadrant of the map. This map was issued by Matthaus Seutter in 1730.

Cartographer


Matthäus Seutter (1678 - 1757) was one of the most important and prolific German map publishers of the 18th century. Seutter was born the son of a goldsmith but apprenticed as a brewer. Apparently uninspired by the beer business, Seutter abandoned his apprenticeship and moved to Nuremberg where he apprenticed as an engraver under the tutelage of the prominent J. B. Homann. Sometime in the early 1700s Seutter left Homann to return to Augsburg, where he worked for the prominent art publisher Jeremiad Wolff (1663 - 1724), for whom he engraved maps and other prints. Sometime around 1717 he established his own independent cartographic publishing firm in Augsburg. Though he struggled in the early years of his independence, Seutter's engraving skill and commitment to diversified map production eventually attracted a substantial following. Most of Seutter's maps are heavily based upon, if not copies of, earlier work done by the Homann and De L'Isle firms. Nonetheless, by 1731/32 Seutter was one of the most prolific publishers of his time and was honored by the German Emperor Karl VI who gave him the title of Imperial Geographer, after which most subsequent maps included the Avec Privilege designation. Seutter continued to publish until his death, at the height of his career, in 1757. Seutter had two engraver sons, Georg Matthäus Seutter (1710 - 173?) and Albrecht Carl Seutter (1722 - 1762). Georg Matthäus quit the business and relocated to Woehrdt in 1729 (and probably died shortly thereafter), leaving the family inheritance to his wastrel brother Albrecht Carl Seutter, who did little to advance the firm until in own death in 1762. Following Albrecht's death, the firm was divided between the established Johann Michael Probst (1727 - 1776) firm and the emerging firm of Tobias Conrad Lotter. Lotter, Matthäus Seutter's son-in-law, was a master engraver and worked tirelessly on behalf of the Suetter firm. It is Lotter, who would eventually become one of the most prominent cartographers of his day, and his descendants, who are generally regarded as the true successors to Matthäus Seutter. (Ritter, M. Seutter, Probst and Lotter: An Eighteenth-Century Map Publishing House in Germany., "Imago Mundi", Vol. 53, (2001), pp. 130-135.) More by this mapmaker...

Condition


Very good. Minor wear along original centerfold. Minor foxing at places. Original platemark visible.

References


Rumsey 12041.107.