Beauce, France.

Schenk, Petri & Valk Gerardi The Region of Beauce "Belsia Vulgo La Beausse." Amsterdam Schenk, Petri & Valk Gerardi c1700
Copper engraved map of the region of Beauce in France from Schenk And Valk's " Atlas Contractus." Original full wash colour; verso blank.
The map shows the agricultural region of Beauce with the capital Chartres.
Decorative title cartouche, with Ceres harvesting grain and a cart drawn by dragons; coat of arms upper right with scale. Dark impression; clean and bright; old ink number to verso.
The maps of Schenk and Valk are famous for their full wash colour , however often the pigments, particularly in the greens deteriorated leading to browning and eventually could cause the paper to crack, for this reason it is unusual to see such bright original colour.

SCHENCK, Pieter 1660-1718/9

Dutch mapmaker and publisher. Born in Elberfeld, Germany in 1660. Moved to Amsterdam in 1683 where he became a pupil of Gerard Valck, later in 1687 he married Agatha Valck, sister of his associate., thus uniting two great families.

In 1686 he is noted in a privilege granted to Petrus Schenck and Gerardus Valck for the printing & sale of their prints.
The Valck and Schenk families where active as print sellers, publishers and printers of maps, atlases and architectural drawings as well globes. They accquired plates from the stock of Johannes Janssonius and also of Visscher reissuing several maps of Janssonius' "Atlas Novus "from 1683-94 and published an Atlas titled" Nova totius Geographia" in 1702.

The best known of the joint Pieter Schenk & Gerard Valck publications were the second edition of Andreas Cellarius's " Celestial Atlas Harmonia Macrocosmica'" 1708 and an edition of Jan Jansson's "Novus Atlas" entitled the "Atlas Anglois" published in London by David Mortier in 1715.

Pieter Schenck the Elder's earliest cartographic productions were a number of maps after Nicolas Sanson published in a composite Atlas, "Atlas Contractus or Atlas Minor" c.1696. He also published a further composite Atlas, "Atlantis sylloge compendiosa," c.1702.


Other works included his famous Atlas of one hundred town views," Hecatompolis" [1702];" Le Theatre de Mars "[1706]; and the "Schouwburg van der Oorlog"[1706].
Koeman III,page 113, map 281. 384 by 496mm (15 by 19½ inches).   ref: 2543  €250