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fact, the vignettes so dominate the map that the coastline with its
rivers and place-names seems of secondary importance.
The illustrations on early maps, and especially those purport-
ing to show native peoples and their milieu, are often several
steps from reality, being idealised from crude sketches or merely
adapted from previous engravings. Those on the Marcgraf map
are altogether of a different class. They were drawn by the Dutch
artist Frans Post (1612-80) of Haarlem, one of the most talented
artists employed in Brazil by Johan Maurits and a man with an
almost fanatical preoccupation with detail, as can be seen in the
many subsequent paintings that he built up from sketches
brought back to Europe in 1644. Furthermore, the vignettes do
not show famous episodes, heroic battles, native 'types' looking
like Europeans in feathers and beads, or mythical animals: they
illustrate everyday colonial life. Outside the sugar mill, negroes
play music and dance, while the mill owner in a broad-brimmed
hat leans over his balcony, apparently conversing with another
on horseback. Every operational detail of the sugar and manioc
mills is carefully spelled out, so that such mills could probably be
reconstructed from these drawings. Of exceptional interest are
the scenes of the Tapuya Indians, dancing, drinking, hunting
`ostriches' (presumably rheas), and in one vignette clubbing,
dismembering and roasting their enemies. Did Frans Post
witness such cannibalism? Only twice are Tapuyas shown in his
paintings, so that these vignettes may well be a most precious
supplement to Post's documentation of Brazil. Taken as a whole,
the vignettes probably offer a more realistic view of life in an
exotic land than those of any other map of the period.
Yet another aspect of great interest in this Brazil map is its
printing history. It first appeared as four plates in the Rerum per
octennium in Brasilia . . . historia, the panegyric published in
1647 (the same year as the Blaeu map) by Caspar van Baerle or
Barlaeus on the eight years that Johan Maurits was Governor-
General of Dutch Brazil. These maps showed successively the
coasts of the captaincies of Sergipe, southern Pernambuco,
northern Pernambuco with Itamaraca, and Paraiba with Rio
Grande. The last two maps included the vignettes of the sugar
mill and the Tupinamba village, but the upper four vignettes (a,
b, c, d. See illustration) were not used (except for a part of the
seine-netting scene on the second map). The remaining illustra-
tions in Barlaeus were engraved from ink and wash drawings by
Frans Post, which are now in a bound volume in the Department
of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (No 197* a2; 31
drawings and one unused). Unfortunately, the original drawings
for the four map vignettes are not known. Possibly they
remained with Blaeu, together with the original draft for the
map, and could thus have been lost in the fire at the Blaeu works
in 1672. What may be part of an early draft of the map, or
perhaps a copy, is in the Algemeen Rijksarchief in The Hague. It
does not conform to the Barlaeus divisions, overlapping parts of
both the first and second maps, but bears the same explanation
and attribution to Marcgraf (here Latinized as Marggrafius, not
Marggraphius).
The four Barlaeus maps were of different shapes and did not
include the four vignettes and title (upper right part of the map),
nor the explanatory text and decoration (lower left part of the
map). In making a rectangular wall map of these, Blaeu fitted
them together, leaving edges where they could be glued and
adding four irregular sheets for the vignettes top right and an L-
shaped sheet bottom left, thus making nine awkward sheets plus
two narrow strips to fill in gaps. Below this, in Latin, Dutch and
French, he added a long text on Brazil based on Barlaeus. The
map itself was 163.7 cm wide and 102.0 cm deep (or 148.8 cm
deep including the text). In the Klenck version the boundaries
are hand-coloured in green, pink and yellow.
Unexpectedly, the Klenck Atlas is not unique. In the
Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in East Berlin is an almost identical
atlas presented to Friedrich Wilhelm, the Great Elector, by none
other than Johan Maurits in 1664 (they were cousins and the
Elector had earlier taken Johan Maurits into his service). Athird
Below:
The main title of Allard's edition of 1659, unlike Blaeu's, includes captions (left to right beginning at the top): Tamandua guaer ofte mieren eeterZyn Tonge is langh 7
Vierendel van een ellen dick gelyck a/s een bas snaer(Tamandua guaer [misreading for guacu] or anteater his tongue is long as four and a part ells [ell=69 cm] thick as a
bass string); Ai ofte Luyaert gaende s dags omterent 20 Passen weeghs a/s hy zy best doet (ai or sloth going per day about twenty paces when he does his best);
Brasiliense muffs (Brazilian mouse); Brasiliaenen Vtfelucht over de Victori van haer batalien (Brazilian joy over victory of their battle); de Bradery (the roasting); de Strut's
Jacht (the ostrich hunt). (By courtesy of Leiden University Library).
Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen was Governor-General of the
Dutch West India Company holdings in Brazil from 1637 to 1644. He
employed Georg Marcgraf as one of a team recording the new land.
This poi trait of Maurits in oils is by Jan de Baen.
The Marcgraf
Map of Brazil
by Peter J. Whitehead
4
Joan Blaeu produced his own (wall-map) edition of the Marcgraf map later in 1647. The
illustration has been marked to show how the nine irregular sheets forming the map were pasted
together. Allard in 1659 and de Jonghe in 1664 rationalised the sheets into nine more or less
equal rectangles. (By courtesy of the British Library)
Dr Whitehead is aPrincipal Scientific Officer in the Zoology
Department of the British Museum (Natural History), specialising
in the taxonomy of herring-like fishes. For many years he has had
adeep interest in the Dutch period in Brazil and has published a
number of articles on the subject. His book on Dutch Brazil, with
fellow ichthyologist Martin Boeseman of Leiden, published
recently, explores the pictorial record of this episode in Dutch
colonial history. Here he examines the famous wall-map of Brazil
in the Klenck atlas.
ONE OF THE great treasures of the map collection in the
British Library is the enormous Klenck Atlas, 1.7 metres high
and opening to a spread of almost 2 metres (5'/zft x 6'/2ft), so
large in fact that it stands in a special glass case and must be
wheeled out into the Students Room of the Map Library. It was
presented to Charles II on his accession in 1660 by a group of
Amsterdam merchants headed by Johannes Klenck (misspelt
Klencke), Professor of Philosophy at the University. The Klenck
Atlas is also noteworthy because it includes one of only four
known copies of the famous wall map of Brazil published by Joan
Blaeu in 1647. Although parts of this map had appeared in book
form in the same year, and the complete map was later twice
copied, it is the original Blaeu version that is the most
celebrated. Not only is it one of the most elegant Dutch maps of
that period, but it remained for over a century the best guide to
north-eastern Brazil.
This map can be dubbed the `Marcgraf map' after its author,
Georg Marcgraf (1610-43), a young German polymath from
Liebstadt near Dresden, who was serving as cartographer,
astronomer, zoologist and botanist to Count Johan Maurits of
Nassau-Siegen, Governor-General from 1637 to 1644 of the
Dutch West India Company holdings in Brazil. Marcgraf's
authorship seems to have gone unrecorded in the West India
Company documents, apart from occasional statements that he
was occupied in cartographic work, but it is attested in a caption
to the map which reads: Quam proprijs observationibus ac
dimensionibus, diturnau peregrinationi ase habitis, fundamentali-
tur superstruabat & delineabat Georgius Marggraphius Germa-
nus, Anno Christi 1643. Marcgraf was one of a team of scientists,
artists, craftsmen and others brought out to Brazil by Johan
Maurits to explore and record every detail of this new land. He
had been a wandering scholar, visiting ten different universities
in about as many years and studying medicine, mathematics,
astronomy and botany, but never apparently with a formal
training in cartography. It is curious, therefore, that Marcgraf
was chosen for such a large project when the well-known
cartographer Cornelis Golijath, one of the best of Dutch
mapmakers, was employed in 1638-41 to make a general map of
the Dutch territories in Brazil. The Golijath map was never in
fact published and is known only through two manuscript copies
made by Johannes Vingboons (son of Philips Vingboons, author
of the 1637 Brasilysche Paskaert). One copy is in the H. G. Born
Atlas in the Instituto Archeologico Pernambucano in Recife,
while the other is in volume 2 of the Vingboons Atlas in the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome. In general, the
Marcgraf map is superior in cartographic indications, whereas
the Golijath/Vingboons map is richer in place names and other
details. This seems to imply that the two did not pool their
information. Certainly, Golijath left Brazil in 1641 to attend the
coronation of Joao IV of Portugal (which would have given
Marcgraf the opportunity to replace him), but his 1648 map of
the Recife area has sufficient up-to-date information that one
can suspect that Golijath returned. Nevertheless, the Blaeu map
bears Marcgraf's name and makes no mention of Golijath. It
would be interesting to discover the true relationship between
the two men's work, but in any event it is clear that Marcgraf was
no simple plagiarizer.
The Marcgraf map has much more of interest, however,
besides its cartographic information. This was the great period of
Dutch wall-maps, elegant pieces to be hung in bourgeois homes,
as seen in the interiors by Vermeer and others. Such maps
required vignettes, decorative borders, informative texts, in fact
all those elements of story-telling that could transform specialist
cartography into popular geography. The Marcgraf map is no
exception. Every spare part is crowded with aspects of Brazilian
life. They show small scenes characteristic of the four groups of
inhabitants the Europeans as colonists and landowners, the
negroes as slaves in the sugar industry, the `savage' Tapuyas
(correctly Tarairius) with a reputation for eating their enemies,
and the more `civilised' Tupinambas settled in aldeias or villages
under Dutch supervision. Combined with this ethnographic
programme are scenes of economic activity (a sugar mill, a
manioc plantation and mill, fishing with a seine net), typical
Brazilian animals (anteater, sloth, boa constrictor, etc.), and in a
festoon under the main title BRASILIA quaparte paret BELGIS
some examples of Indian weapons and musical instruments. In
iF
The vignettes include a
seine-netting scene with
manioc and sugar
plantations below. Allard
gives the following captions
(left to right, top to bottom):
Schilt wacht omt'
Waerschouwen wanner
d'Visschers met Vis aen
coomen (Watch to warn
when the fishermen come
with the fish); Faringe
Planttagie wiens Wortelin
plaetse Van broot werdt
genutticht ( Manioc
plantation whose root was
eaten in place of bread);
Faringe werdt alhiergerast
[geraspt] en gedroocht (Flour
was here ground and dried);
Thugs van d'Heer van een
SukckerMoolen (House of
the master of a sugar mill).
(By courtesy of Leiden
University Library).
The third edition of the Marcgraf map was that published by
Clement de Jonghe of Amsterdam in 1664. At least three copies
exist: in the British Library, in the Maritiem Museum 'Prins
Hendrik' in Rotterdam, and in the Ministerio das Relacoes
Exteriores (Ministry of Foreign Relations) in Rio de Janeiro. De
Jonghe followed Allard in using nine more or less equal sheets,
thus again elongating the left vignette, but there are some
puzzling differences. Although he copied Allard (or Barlaeus) in
omitting the procession and also the palms at the top of Paraiba
with Rio Grande, he took only some of the Allard captions (with
some spelling changes), leaving out most of those describing the
scenes. Once again, the copying of topographical detail and
place-names is very exact, although the engraver was sometimes
rather careless, as when he dated the fourth sea battle as An
MDXL and entirely forgot to inscribe Rio Grande on the banner
below the arms for that captaincy.
In the history of cartography there are a number of truly great
maps, great because of their subject or their unique survival or
their association with some famous figure in a particular phase of
the art. The Marcgraf map of Brazil is perhaps in a more modest
category. Yet its elegance, its balance between cartographic and
socio-ethnographic information, its power to evoke lost scenes of
colonial life, its considerable accuracy and the recognition that
was accorded to it at the time (by inclusion in the Klenck and
other prestigious atlases) give it a rather special place in the
evolution of maps.
It was Allard and de Jonghe, furthermore, who recognised a
need for further editions of the complete wall-map with its
vignettes and it is much to their credit that they took such pains
to reproduce every cartographic and pictorial detail with
exactness. In this way, at least nine examples have come down to
us as a record of the skills of Georg Marcgraf, Frans Post, some
unrecorded engravers and above all the marvellous energy and
enthusiasm of a colonial governor, Johan Maurits, who con-
ceived and largely financed the project.
Amore detailed analysis of the map, together with full
bibliographic references, is given by:
P. J. P. Whitehead &M. Boeseman, 1987. A portrait of
Dutch seventeenth century Brazil. animals, plants and people
by the artists of Johan Maurits of Nassau. Amsterdam:
Koninklijkc Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen and
North-Holland Publishing Company.
References:
1. Wall-maps in Dutch paintings are sometimes of such accuracy that they can help
to elucidate the history of the map itself (see for example James A. Welu, 1978.
'The map in Vermeer's art of painting', Imago Mundi, 30. pp 9-30. The
Marcgraf map is not known from any painting, but the 1630 'news map' of
Recife by Claes Jansz. Visscher appears in a Dutch interior by Jacob Duck.
2. The Berlin atlas has been rebound with wooden boards and rather ugly baroque
metal decoration, but the Rostock atlas has an original binding almost identical
to that of the Klenck, being a series of diamond shapes (occupied by roses,
fleurs-de-lys, thistles or harps in the Klenck version). Their parentage is the
same, the Klenck being inscribed on the spine Kees Dierkz. et filius D. K.
compegerunt anno 1660 and the Rostock Kors Dierksen et filius D. Korsen
compegerunt anno 1664. Since the Klenck and Berlin atlases were gifts to very
prominent men, one would expect the same of the Rostock atlas, but its
provenance is unknown.
3. In some, perhaps many. copies of Barlaeus one or more second state maps have
been substituted for the originals. Thus the British Library copy (formerly
owned by Sir Joseph Banks) has no negro on the watch tower (map 2), nor
procession with horseman and palanquin (map 3), whereas in the coloured copy
of Barlaeus in the Royal Geographical Society Map Room these elements are
present (second state). In the copy of Barlaeus used by S. P. 1'H. Naber for his
Dutch translation (1923) map 4 was in the second state (additional palms, texts
for sea battles IiIV).
4. Acoloured copy of the Dutch edition (1665) was examined in the Royal
Geographical Society Map Room, entitled Derde deel van 't achste stuck der
aerdrycks-beschrvving, welck vervat America. The text and maps occupy
signatures S2S7, the four maps being out of their Barlaeus order map (1 S3;
map 3 S4; map 2 S5; map 4 S6), as correctly indicated by Koeman (Atlantes
neerlandici, 1:244). 1 am indebted to Francis Herbert of the Royal Geographical
Society for drawing my attention to this and to their coloured Barlaeus and for
much helpful criticism of my text.
20
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Above:
The Marcgraf Blaeu map of Brazil was first published as four plates in 1647 in Barlaeus's Rerum per octennium in Brasilia . . . historia. The detail shown here is from the
map of northern Pernambuco and Itamaraca. (By courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society, London)
such huge atlas is in the University Library at Rostock in East
Germany.2
Both the Berlin and the Rostock atlases include the Marcgraf
map (sheets 35 and 32 respectively). Yet another copy of this
Blaeu map, and apparently the only known example that still
exists as a traditional wall-map, was in the possession of the
Utrecht dealer R. C. Bracken in 1983. It differs from the other
three in that the Latin text is mounted vertically down the right
side, the Dutch replaces the Latin at the bottom, while the
French runs down the left side; also, it is uncoloured.
The Barlacus maps can be considered as a first state.
Presumably Blaeu, who was the publisher of the Barlaeus book,
had seen the possibility of making a complete map and
commissioned the vignettes from Frans Post. Why he should
have allowed the second Barlaeus map to be of a different width
(southern Pernambuco almost 10 cm narrower than the rest) is
mysterious, although the heights are much the same. The
overlap areas were already marked by lines on the Barlaeus
sheets, showing that a pasted-up complete version was planned.
Curiously, however, Blaeu then decided to make several small
alterations. For example, he placed a negro on the watch tower
overlooking the seine netting scene, added a procession with a
palanquin, woman with basket and man on horseback below the
sugar mill, placed two extra palms at the top of Paraiba with Rio
Grande, and supplied captions to the sea battles numbered H-
IV. With the addition of the vignettes, this can be considered as
the second state of the map.3
The Blaeu edition can be instantly recognised by the large
palm on the right of the sugar mill buildings and a smaller one
above the Tupinamba village buildings (both on the Paraiba with
Rio Grande map). Both the later Allard and the de Jonghe
editions have a honey bee and a grasshopper below the swags of
flowers in the top right vignette, as well as at least some captions
to the animals and scenes. The Allard alone has a small palm
added to the left of the manioc scene, just below the fishermen,
while the de Jonghe edition is immediately recognisable by
provision of the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense around the arms
of Prince Frederik Hendrik, the Stadholder, who had been
nominated knight of the Order of the Garter in 1627 (his are the
righthand arms hung from the festoon below the main title).
Blaeu re-issued the four maps in editions of his Atlas Major
(Latin, 1662; Dutch, 1665), using the second state, but otherwise
in the form used in the Barlaeus book.4
The subsequent printing history of the Marcgraf map poses
tantalising questions regarding copyright, pirating and the
economics of producing other editions of maps. Twelve years
after the Blaeu edition of 1647, Huych Allard (or Huijch Allart)
of Amsterdam published a new edition of the map. Careful
comparison of the details shows that although the topographical
lines and the place names are almost identical, they were in fact
re-engraved. Allard sensibly rationalised the awkward Blaeu
arrangement by making nine more or less equal sheets of
approximately 38.5 by 52.7 cm. He extended the bottom to give
more room for the sea battles, which meant elongating the
vignette on the left side, and he provided Dutch captions for the
animals and the scenes. It seems possible that he re-engraved the
two right maps (northern Pernambuco and Paraiba with Rio
Grande) from original Barlaeus examples, since the procession
in the first and the two palms in the second are missing. An
incomplete copy of the Allard map (top right sheet missing) is in
the Bodel Nijenhuis collection, p. 219, No. 60, in the Universi-
teitsbibliotheek in Leiden, while a complete copy was offered for
sale by Sotheby's recently (October 23, 1986, item 141,
illustrated on p. 77 of catalogue); it was suggested in the
catalogue that the imprint date of 1659 had been altered from
1657.
19