Lower & Exterior Ethiopia

Copperplate engraving by Olfert Dapper (1636-1689).

Amsterdam 1670.

A seventeenth century map of Southern Africa, as well as the south-eastern parts of Madagascar, from the German edition of Dapper's Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. The interior of the continent features depictions of a number of African animals, including elephants, a rhinoceros in the Congo, lions and an ostrich in Monomotapa, and a group of buffalo above the Cape of Good Hope. In an act of cartographic speculation, the rounded bottom of the continent also features a dotted outline, suggesting a potential pointed coastline for the Cape of Good Hope, as was often shown in earlier maps of the continent.

The large and decorative title cartouche in the bottom right corner features depictions of European traders and a group of Africans.

Olfert Dapper's 'Description of Africa' was an ethnographic book which offered a detailed description of the parts of Africa known to Europeans in the mid-seventeenth century. Despite the work being regarded as one of the most important and detailed seventeenth-century publications on Africa, Dapper himself never actually visited the continent. Instead, he relied on the reports of Jesuit missionaries and Dutch explorers. The 'Description of Africa' was first published in 1668 by Jacob van Meurs in Amsterdam, with a second Dutch edition appearing in 1676. In 1670, a German translation of the publication was issued, and in the same year, an English translation, which is generally attributed to John Ogilby. A French edition was published in 1676, although it was not as true to the original as the other translations.

Olfert Dapper (1636 - 1689) was a Dutch physician and writer. Despite never travelling outside of the Netherlands, Dapper was a writer of world history and geography.

(Cropped at the edges with some loss).
365mm x 285mm

R12,500

See also Description of Africa (1670) First German Edition by Olfert Dapper