A State No More

$124,500

“A rare survival from the Dutch Golden Age, ‘Belgii XVII Provinciarum’ (circa 1670), Frederick de Wit’s important nine-sheet wall map showing the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries, can only be described as a piece of cartographic nostalgia,” says dealer Daniel Crouch of London and New York. By the time the map was published, he explains, the once-united Seventeen Provinces had been broken apart by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, in which Spain formally recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic. “Engraved earlier than the other two known examples, this version of de Wit’s map is the first state of a map of a state that had long ceased to exist!” Crouch is offering this rarity at the European Fine Art Fair, which runs March 10 through 18 in Maastricht.

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‘Belgii XVII Provinciarum’ (circa 1670)

Photo: Courtesy