Atlas historique tome IV

Henri Abraham Châtelain, working with members of his family, produced a seven-volume Atlas historique between 1705 and 1720. The work combined geography, chronology, genealogy, history, politics, religion, and moral instruction. Its engraved title pages form part of the atlas’s larger educational programme, presenting history and geography through allegory as well as through maps maps, text, tables, and institutional diagrams.

Six different titlepages are associated with the Atlas historique. Title pages 302and 361were made for the second volume, first published in 1708. This title page introduces vol. 4, published in 1714, and is signed by Jan Goeree as inventor, T. Schynvoet as draughtsman, and Pieter Sluyter as engraver. Its imagery allegorises the northern regions of Europe through crowned figures, heraldry, military trophies, maritime symbols, and a medallion of the northern wind. At the centre, the winged figure of History sits on a monumental plinth inscribed Atlas Historique Tome IV. Behind her stands Geography, holding out a map marked with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Pomerania, Prussia, and Muscovy, making clear that the volume is concerned with northern Europe. Sweden, shown as a crowned female figure, offers scrolls of archives to History, while putti support an oval medallion of Gustavus Adolphus II, King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632.

The other main crowned female figures represent the kingdoms of Denmark at left and Austria at right, each with its armorial shield. Austria’s foot rests on the prostrate body of a defeated Turk, recalling the halting of the Ottoman advance outside Vienna in 1683. Below, the cold north wind, Septentrio, brings rain and blustering weather, while two bears lie at the foot of the composition. Ships, trade goods, instruments, cannon, coniferous trees, and heavy clouds further evoke the climate, commerce, warfare, and maritime life of northern Europe.

See also related Châtelain material in the collection 247, 248, 249, 250, and 353.