JAKARTA BATAVIA INDONESIA 1765c SALMON UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED CITY VIEW

Description: Striking and highly detailed interesting 1765ca Thomas Salmon's copper engraved coastal view of the fortified city of Batavia, then the trading hub of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
 
Visual Elements: In the foreground, several period vessels stand out, including large merchant ships and smaller local vessels sailing along the coast. The colonial city walls and the outline of the inland mountains of Java are visible in the background.
 
Inscriptions: At the top center, a decorative cartouche with the inscription "BATAVIA" appears, surmounted by the city's coat of arms. Ven. "
 
The print is titled "Batavia" (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia), created by the Italian engraver Giuseppe Filosi. This historical panoramic view was part of the Italian edition of Thomas Salmon's famous geographical work, "The Present State of All the Countries and Peoples of the Natural World," published in Venice in the mid-18th century by Giambattista Albrizzi.

 
Source: Thomas Salmon. Lo stato presente di tutti i paesi e popoli del mondo naturale, politico, e morale con nuove osservazioni, e correzioni degli antichi e moderni viaggiatori. Venezia, Giovambattista Albrizzi, 1731-1766.

The work – in twenty-seven volumes – whose original title was "Modern history, or the present state of all nations," was translated from English and printed in Venice by Albrizzi over several years and traces a historical analysis of the nations of the world enriched by the geographical and artistic description of cities and include copper engravings depicting the territories, general views and the monuments. 

Date: 1765 ( undated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 30,1 x 18,4

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains. Map uncolored. Small foxing and browning. Minor loosing of the view. Small tears. Small holes. Sheet folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images.
         
Mapmaker: Thomas Salmon (1679–1767) was an English historical and geographical writer. Born at Meppershall in Bedfordshire, and baptised there on 2 February 1679, was son of Thomas Salmon, by his wife Katherine, daughter of John Bradshaw; Nathanael Salmon was his elder brother. William Cole wrote that he wrote much of his work in Cambridge, where he ran a coffee house, and then moved to London. He told Cole that he had spent time at sea, and in both the East and West Indies for some time. He also travelled in Europe. In 1739–40 Salmon accompanied George Anson on his voyage round the world. He died on 20 January 1767.

Publisher: Giambattista Albrizzi (1698 - 1777), a.k.a. Giovanni Battista Albrizzi, was an Italian publisher and journalist active in Venice during the mid-18th century. Albrizzi was the scion of a well-established Venetian publishing dynasty and followed in the footsteps of his father, Girolamo Albrizzi, who founded the family printing business and is known for publishing the work the great Venetian cartography Vincenzo Coronelli. Giambattista Albrizzi is generally considered to be the most prominent 18th century Venetian publisher. Today he is best known for his friendship and collaboration with Giovanni Battista Piazzeta (1683 - 1754), a well know Venetian artist and engraver, whose drawings and engravings appear in many of Albrizzi's publications, including his maps. Giambattista Albrizzi's cartographic work, while not particularly innovative in terms of content, often featured elaborate decorative elements designed by Piazzeta. Through the integration of such decorative elements, Albrizzi hopped to revive the reputation of Venetian publishing, which since the late 17th century, had fallen in regard since the days of Girolamo. His work helped lay the foundations for Italian school decorative cartography in the late 18th and early 19th century, including the work of Antonio Zatta, among others. In addition to Albrizzi's work as a map and book publisher, he also issued a weekly journal, Novelle della Repubblica delle Lettere, a kind of early newspaper that played an important role in Venetian business and intellectual life.