Adriaan Schoonebeek and Peter Schoonebeek
Hamatarac Asxarhac Oyc [Armenian Map of the World], Amsterdam, 1695
Auction Closed
February 9, 09:35 PM GMT
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Map engraved on eight joined sheets
Mounted on linen-covered board, glazed and framed; title apparently trimmed from upper margin, areas of loss with expert restoration including some instances of facsimile, closed tears repaired, verso unexamined.
44 ½ in. x 60 in.
152.5 cm x 113 cm
Arader Galleries, New York;
From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 29 June 2009.
New York City, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Armenia!, 22 September 2018 - 13 January 2019.
Shirley, Mapping of the World 575; Koeman, in Imago Mundi XXI, pp. 113-114
This distinctive world map is a great rarity. It was commissioned by Archbishop Warthabeth, who founded an Armenian press in Amsterdam in 1688, overseen by the Vanandec'i family under the editorship of Lukas Nurij'anean. Hamatarac Asxarhac Oyc represents the first product of an Amsterdam press established solely for the purposes of printing Armenian texts.
The geographical content of the map is that of the traditional Dutch world map of the period with celestial hemispheres and polar projections. Shirley states: "the magnificent corner decorations are some of the finest to be seen on any contemporary map." Indeed, they boast a rich array of gods and goddesses, birds and beasts, and depictions of Aristotle's make up of the world: water, earth, air, and fire.
It is one of eight known copies, and evidently the only example of this extraordinary and important map in private hands.
