Pieter Van Der Aa
1659-1733, One of a small number of European cartographers who during the 17th and 18th century produced county maps of the British Isles
Find Maps by Pieter Van Der Aa
Pieter Van Der Aa was one of a small number of European cartographers, operating in the 17th and 18th century who produced county maps of the British Isles.
From Leyden/Leiden in Holland, he was apprenticed to the booksellers’ trade at nine and later at the ripe age of 23, progressed to bookseller and auctioneer. In 1692 he was appointed as one of the High Commissioners of the Booksellers’ Guild.
Van Der Aa (sometimes referred to as vander Aa) was a prolific publisher, and over the following fifty years he published an enormous amount of material including atlases and illustrated works in every shape and size, two of them consisting of no less than 27 and 28 volumes containing over 3,000 maps and plates.
Over the years he acquired the plates of a number of earlier mapmakers and as a result, little of his work was original, comprising mainly of re-issues and re-engravings of these older maps and plates. He did however, bring his own very distinct and outstanding style to the enterprise, which gave his works an elegance and precision which is much sought-after today.
The outstanding feature of Van Der Aa’s style and engraving is that several of his atlases include maps printed within large, separately engraved, elaborately designed mock-frame borders. The frames were prepared with a blank centre so that individual maps could be over-printed within the central area of the mock frame..
Although Van Der Aa specialised in quantity and variety, his works seem to have had a limited circulation, and as a result are now scarce and highly collectable.
Maps Relating to Ireland
Maps relating to Ireland appeared in the fourth section of his work entitled, "Nouveau Petit Atlas", which was published in Amsterdam in 1714. All his maps have the following imprint at the base, "A Leide, Chez Pierre vander Aa Avec Privilage"
Image(s): Map of Turkey and Cyprus, published in 1719
