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MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POCKET ATLAS
LOBECK, Tobias and Tobias Conradus LOTTER. Atlas Geographicus Portatilis XXIX mappis ...
Augsburg, Tobias Lobeck, [c. 1755]. Oblong mixed format (11 x 14.5 cm). With engraved title-page, frontispiece and list of the maps, and 41 engraved full-page maps (12 additional to those in the list). All maps coloured (some partly in outline) by a contemporary hand.
WITH: LOBECK, Tobias. Kurzgefaste Geographie, ...
Augsburg, Tobias Lobeck, [c. 1755]. Oblong large 18mo? With title-page in a frame of thick-thin rules, "Vorrede," tables of data in 2 columns, 1 tailpiece and cast fleurons.
2 works in 1 volume (11 x 14 cm). Contemporary tanned sheepskin, blind-tooled.
| Orders and Information | € 3250 |
A nice little pocket atlas of the world, wholly engraved, with the emphasis on Europe. It opens with a title-page in an architectural cartouche, and a frontispiece, both drawn by Gottfried Eichler, junior. The 41 maps and the contents list follow, beginning with the celestial and terrestrial hemispheres and the continents, with more detailed maps of western and eastern Europe. The twelve maps additional to those in the contents list provide more detail in the German states and northern Italy. The Geographie bound after the atlas was clearly designed to accompany it, and its title-page refers to the "Land-charten, welche einen kleinen Sack-Atlas ausmachen." It was printed for Lobeck by Johann Michael Spaeth, and comprises primarily tables of the names of regions. The "Vorrede" describes the intended use of the whole volume: "theils zum Nachschlagen auf Reisen ... theils zu einer Anweisung beym Zeitungs-Lesen gebrauchen könnte." It was also intended for young people learning the basics of geography.
Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717-1777) engraved the maps for T. Lobeck's 1747 miniature atlas, issued with an almanac. The atlas remained in use for many years, with the maps reprinted and with new maps added, but the title-page continued to report 29 maps (it looks like it originally said 30, changed to 29 in the plate). Some copies therefore include eight, twelve or twenty maps engraved by Lobeck himself and additional to those in the contents list. Most of these were apparently printed in groups of four. The present copy has twelve, four matching four of the eight (22-24 & 28) in the copy described by Phillips & LeGear, but the other eight not reported there. These cover Mainz, Westphalia, Brandenburg, Franconia, the Palatine, Prussia, Savoy and Milan. Six of them appear in the Berlin copy described in IKAR, but we have not found the other two recorded: "Regiæ Celsitudinis Sabaudica .../Ducatus septentrio Saudiae" and "Ducatus septentrio Mediolani." Some copies include maps dated 1762, not present in this copy, which was therefore probably issued c. 1755.
With a tiny hole in one map, three small tears, not affecting the map images, and an occasional faint waterstain or minor marginal defect, but in very good condition overall. The binding with some cuts and tears. A neat little pocket atlas from the mid-eighteenth century.
